ABSTRACT
Quality has been defined in different ways by various experts and the operational definition has even changed over time. The best way is to start from the beginning and look at the origin and meaning of the word. Quality, in Latin qualitas, comes from the word qualis, meaning “how constituted” and signifying “such as a thing really is.” The MerriamWebster dictionary defines quality as “. . . peculiar and essential character . . . a distinguishing attribute. . . .” Thus, a product has several or infinite qualities. Juran and Gryna [1] looked at multiple elements of fitness of use based on various quality characteristics (or qualities), such as technological characteristics (strength, dimensions, current, weight, ph values), psychological characteristics (beauty, taste, and many other sensory characteristics), time-oriented characteristics (reliability, availability, maintainability, safety, and security), cost (purchase price, life cycle cost), and product development cycle. Deming also discussed several faces of quality; the three corners of quality relate to various quality characteristics and focus on evaluation of quality from the viewpoint of the customer [2]. The American Society for Quality defines quality as the “totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a user’s given needs” [3]. Thus the quality of a process or product is defined and evaluated by the customer. Any process has many processes before it that are typically called the suppliers and has many processes after it that are its customers. Thus, anything (the next process, environment, user) the present process affects is its customer.
