ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses each section of the House of Quality, beginning with its foundation and cornerstones—goals, objectives, and planning. The House of Quality metaphor used here describes the basic principles and concepts associated with total quality. The House of Quality represents: a roof, or superstructure, consisting of the social, technical, and management systems; the four pillars of customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, speaking with facts, and respect for people; the foundation of four managerial levels—strategy, process, project, and task management; and the four cornerstones of mission, vision, values, and goals and objectives. The roof of the House of Quality is supported by four pillars: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, managing with facts, and respect for people. The Customer-Driven Engineering model attempts to reconcile customer attributes and engineering attributes. Deming and Shewhart developed the Plan, Do, Check, Act, or PDCA, cycle. The PDCA cycle represents a never-ending cycle of improvement that occurs in all phases of the organization.
