ABSTRACT
Concurrent engineering (CE) results in quality being guaranteed by design, it fits in completely with the concept of total quality control (TQC). The basic tenet of TQC, that quality is the responsibility of every employee, is paralleled by the basic tenet of CE — that the quality of design is the concern of all departments. Some corporations believe that the appointment of a vice president responsible for quality is sufficient to solve their quality problems, but that approach ignores the all-pervading effect of quality on a company. In the better corporations, the customer may be assured of a good product by an energetic and thorough quality control department, but at the cost of an unacceptably high level of rejects and with excessive costs for replacement parts. Quality in the factory starts with consistency of the processes, which is particularly important in large corporations that make the same product in different plants.
