Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED users .

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Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED users .

Hi there, I need to know since when "quality" is used to mean "degree of excellence (syn: grade)" (as provided by Webster's Third New International. One example phrase they give is "the quality of the golfer's game"). Perhaps there is anybody around who has the OED, or something similar ( at hand? Or could give the information anyway? That would spare me a 5km trip to the library. Many TIA! -- Florian v. Savigny (If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Er, and while we're at it: can anybody tell when "quality management" (the English word) first occurred? -- Florian v. Savigny (If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Mike Lyle
Guest

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:03 pm Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED us

Florian v. Savigny wrote:

Quote:

Hi there,

I need to know since when "quality" is used to mean "degree of
excellence (syn: grade)" (as provided by Webster's Third New
International. One example phrase they give is "the quality of the
golfer's game").

Perhaps there is anybody around who has the OED, or something
similar
( Wink

at hand? Or could give the information anyway? That would
spare
me a 5km trip to the library.

OED1 has 1874 for "peculiar excellence"; but earlier uses do come
close to that meaning.

Mike.

Mike Lyle
Guest

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:03 pm Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Florian v. Savigny wrote:

Quote:

Er, and while we're at it: can anybody tell when "quality
management" (the English word) first occurred?

Meaning "quality control"? (Not that I know. Or that I'd expect to
find it in my OED1.)

Mike.

Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 12:13 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

Quote:

Er, and while we're at it: can anybody tell when "quality
management" (the English word) first occurred?

Meaning "quality control"? (Not that I know. Or that I'd expect to
find it in my OED1.)

I think it is not the same thing, quality control being rather a
predecessor of QM. The former merely means controlling the end product
and discarding what's faulty, AFAIK, while the latter aims to define
and control ALL processes (i. e. what's done) involved in the
production of a good in order to optimize them (the end is the same,
of course: a good product).

I would expect it to have first occurred around 1950 or so. I
understand the OED1 was issued earlier than that.

--

Florian v. Savigny

(If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only
check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre
personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels
qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 12:20 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

Quote:

OED1 has 1874 for "peculiar excellence"; but earlier uses do come
close to that meaning.

You be praised. Do the earlier uses also apply quality to some
_action_, instead of a thing or a person? But my main concern is
resolved - whether this meaning predates the advent of "quality
management", which I can safely assume now.

That is, I take it that 'excellence' always applies to some action -
is that correct?

--

Florian v. Savigny

(If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only
check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre
personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels
qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Mike Lyle
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:02 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Florian v. Savigny wrote:

Quote:

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

OED1 has 1874 for "peculiar excellence"; but earlier uses do come
close to that meaning.

You be praised. Do the earlier uses also apply quality to some
_action_, instead of a thing or a person? But my main concern is
resolved - whether this meaning predates the advent of "quality
management", which I can safely assume now.

That is, I take it that 'excellence' always applies to some
action -
is that correct?

Ah, there it gets tricky. No, I would apply "excellence"
to...er.._qualities_ as well as to actions. The two examples in OED1
use this "excellence" quality of things -- one to artists' pigments,
and the other to books.

Mike.

Jess Askin
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:33 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Florian v. Savigny" <sawitzky2000@yahoo.de> wrote in message
news:m21xesbdpl.fsf@yahoo.de...

Quote:

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

Er, and while we're at it: can anybody tell when "quality
management" (the English word) first occurred?

Meaning "quality control"? (Not that I know. Or that I'd expect to
find it in my OED1.)

I think it is not the same thing, quality control being rather a
predecessor of QM. The former merely means controlling the end product
and discarding what's faulty, AFAIK, while the latter aims to define
and control ALL processes (i. e. what's done) involved in the
production of a good in order to optimize them (the end is the same,
of course: a good product).

This used to be mentioned as the difference between the Japanese and
American approaches to manufacturing. But the first time I read about this
(in the 80's?), I'm pretty sure "quality control," or QC, was used for both
ideas.

Ben Zimmer
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:34 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Florian v. Savigny" wrote:

Quote:

Sounds like OED2's definition 8a:

8. a. The nature, kind, or character (of something).
Now restricted to cases in which there is comparison
(expressed or implied) with other things of the same
kind; hence, the degree or grade of excellence, etc.
possessed by a thing. <in the quality of>: (cf. 6).
spec. in phr. <the quality of life>.

Citations follow:

--------------
c1374 CHAUCER Troylus III. Prol. 31 Ye knowe al ilke couered qualite Of
ing which at folk on wondren so. c1400 MANDEVILLE (Roxb.) xiii. 59 A man
may gyffe no couenable penaunce bot if he knawe e qualitee and e
quantitee of e synne. 1509 HAWES Past. Pleas. XXIII. (Percy Soc.) 106
After the qualyte it doth take effecte. 1570 DEE Math. Pref. 8 An other
liquid Medicine I haue: whose Qualitie is heate, in the first degree.
1650 BAXTER Saints' R. I. iv. (1662) 22 It is so little I know of mine
own soul, either its quiddity or quality. 1697 DRYDEN Virg. Georg. III.
237 This flying Plague (to mark its quality;) Oestros the Grecians call.
1794 J. HUTTON Philos. Light, etc. 272 This principle of fire moves, in
the quality of light, with the most amazing velocity. 1841-4 EMERSON
Ess., Prudence Wks. (Bohn) I. 95 There is more difference in the quality
of our pleasures than in the amount. 1842 MISS MITFORD in L'Estrange
Life (1870) III. ix. 142 The perfection of cunning is to conceal its own
quality. 1879 G. C. HARLAN Eyesight viii. 114 It is on account of the
quality, rather than the size, of English print, that it is usually so
much pleasanter to read than American. 1943 J. B. PRIESTLEY Daylight on
Saturday xxxi. 253 The plans already..maturing that would give all our
citizens more security, better opportunities, and a nobler quality of
life. 1955 E. SEVAREID Newsmakers (CBS Radio broadcast script) 30 Nov.
(Sevareid MS. Collection, Library of Congress) 6 He [sc. Adlai
Stevenson] seems disturbed about the quality of American life, when most
politicians measure it only in quantity. [1955 A. STEVENSON Let. 13 Dec.
(Sevareid MS. Collection, Library of Congress), I have..read Sevareid
Newsmakers CBS Radio, November 30, 1955... Your summarization of my
anxieties about America and its quality was the tonic I needed for some
more utterances along that line.] 1956 A. SCHLESINGER in N.Y. Times Mag.
4 Mar. 60/3 The liberal's belief in working for change does..mean that
he feels history can never stand still, that social change can better
the quality of people's lives and happiness, and that the margin of
change, however limited, is worth the effort. 1969 Guardian 5 Aug. 8/1 A
Government which says it concerns itself with the quality of
life..cannot be without a broadcasting policy. 1972 J. MANN Mrs Knox's
Profession ii. 7 Vic was going to make a corner in housing, and the
quality of life, which he had..worked out would be closest to the hearts
of his constituents. 1977 M. EDELMAN Polit. Lang. viii. 151 The
consequence is a decline in the quality of life, springing from a
lowering of real income. 1979 Nature 24 May 311/2 Monitoring of trace
constituents of the atmosphere is becoming increasingly important
because of the implications on the quality of life of growing
concentrations of several compounds which, after industrial use, are
released to the atmosphere.
--------------

I can't really tell from the citations when the shift in usage occurred
-- perhaps the 1879 quote is the earliest with the modern sense?

FWIW, "quality control" is dated to 1935, "quality-tested" to 1938, and
"quality assurance" to 1940.

Mike Lyle
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 1:34 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Ben Zimmer wrote:

Quote:

"Florian v. Savigny" wrote:

Hi there,

I need to know since when "quality" is used to mean "degree of
excellence (syn: grade)" (as provided by Webster's Third New
International. One example phrase they give is "the quality of the
golfer's game").

Sounds like OED2's definition 8a:

8. a. The nature, kind, or character (of something).
Now restricted to cases in which there is comparison
(expressed or implied) with other things of the same
kind; hence, the degree or grade of excellence, etc.
possessed by a thing. <in the quality of>: (cf. 6).
spec. in phr. <the quality of life>.

Citations follow:

--------------
c1374 CHAUCER Troylus III. Prol. 31 Ye knowe al ilke couered
qualite
Of ing which at folk on wondren so. c1400 MANDEVILLE (Roxb.) xiii.
59
A man may gyffe no couenable penaunce bot if he knawe e qualitee
and e
quantitee of e synne. 1509 HAWES Past. Pleas. XXIII. (Percy Soc.)
106
After the qualyte it doth take effecte. 1570 DEE Math. Pref. 8 An
other liquid Medicine I haue: whose Qualitie is heate, in the first
degree. 1650 BAXTER Saints' R. I. iv. (1662) 22 It is so little I
know of mine own soul, either its quiddity or quality. 1697 DRYDEN
Virg. Georg. III. 237 This flying Plague (to mark its quality;)
Oestros the Grecians call. 1794 J. HUTTON Philos. Light, etc. 272
This principle of fire moves, in the quality of light, with the
most
amazing velocity. 1841-4 EMERSON Ess., Prudence Wks. (Bohn) I. 95
There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in
the
amount. 1842 MISS MITFORD in L'Estrange Life (1870) III. ix. 142
The
perfection of cunning is to conceal its own quality. 1879 G. C.
HARLAN Eyesight viii. 114 It is on account of the quality, rather
than the size, of English print, that it is usually so much
pleasanter to read than American. 1943 J. B. PRIESTLEY Daylight on
Saturday xxxi. 253 The plans already..maturing that would give all
our citizens more security, better opportunities, and a nobler
quality of life. 1955 E. SEVAREID Newsmakers (CBS Radio broadcast
script) 30 Nov. (Sevareid MS. Collection, Library of Congress) 6 He
[sc. Adlai Stevenson] seems disturbed about the quality of American
life, when most politicians measure it only in quantity. [1955 A.
STEVENSON Let. 13 Dec. (Sevareid MS. Collection, Library of
Congress), I have..read Sevareid Newsmakers CBS Radio, November 30,
1955... Your summarization of my anxieties about America and its
quality was the tonic I needed for some more utterances along that
line.] 1956 A. SCHLESINGER in N.Y. Times Mag. 4 Mar. 60/3 The
liberal's belief in working for change does..mean that he feels
history can never stand still, that social change can better the
quality of people's lives and happiness, and that the margin of
change, however limited, is worth the effort. 1969 Guardian 5 Aug.
8/1 A Government which says it concerns itself with the quality of
life..cannot be without a broadcasting policy. 1972 J. MANN Mrs
Knox's Profession ii. 7 Vic was going to make a corner in housing,
and the quality of life, which he had..worked out would be closest
to
the hearts of his constituents. 1977 M. EDELMAN Polit. Lang. viii.
151 The consequence is a decline in the quality of life, springing
from a lowering of real income. 1979 Nature 24 May 311/2 Monitoring
of trace constituents of the atmosphere is becoming increasingly
important because of the implications on the quality of life of
growing concentrations of several compounds which, after industrial
use, are released to the atmosphere. --------------

I can't really tell from the citations when the shift in usage
occurred -- perhaps the 1879 quote is the earliest with the modern
sense?

Does OED2 not give OED1's 9.c? -- with the 1874 example "Quality of
colour means purity or truth of hue" and 1891 "The book...has...more
quality and distinction than four-fifths of the novels which come
under our notice."

I confess to uncertainty here: I'm taking the enquiry as a reference
to "quality" in the tradesman's sense of "special excellence", which
I take as 9.c; but I'm having some difficulty in separating it from
the later use of 8.a. Any guidance, please?

Mike.

Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:02 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

Quote:

I confess to uncertainty here: I'm taking the enquiry as a reference
to "quality" in the tradesman's sense of "special excellence", which
I take as 9.c; but I'm having some difficulty in separating it from
the later use of 8.a. Any guidance, please?

Well, yes, that is what I asked. I realize now I actually meant
something different, but partly overlapping: I mean excellence of
actions, whether as a comparative measure or as meaning "special
excellence" (which I take to mean "high excellence" - wheow, it gets
hard).

In other words, since when (if at all), it is possible to say that a a
haircut, a massage, a professional's football game, can be of high or
low quality, meaning it is performed well or badly.

I am asking this because of the QM habit of applying "quality" to
almost everything, including mere actions. To the German ear, this is
somewhat awkward because we do apply 'quality' to manufactured or
handmade products (hence a knife may become blunt quickly because it
is "bad quality"), but not to services. Hence, if my toilet leaks
because the plumber has installed it in a careless manner, we would
talk about bad work, not bad quality. If it leaks because some washer
becomes porous all too early, we'd say the toilet is bad quality. My
question was whether this distinction does not really exist in
English, hence it might seem less unnatural to the English ear to talk
about the "quality of a process".

In any case, thanks a lot so far!

--

Florian v. Savigny

(If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only
check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre
personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels
qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Florian v. Savigny
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:04 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer@midway.uchicago.edu> writes:

Quote:

1879 G. C. HARLAN Eyesight viii. 114 It is on account of the
quality, rather than the size, of English print, that it is usually
so much pleasanter to read than American.

I can't really tell from the citations when the shift in usage occurred
-- perhaps the 1879 quote is the earliest with the modern sense?

By 'modern sense', do you mean the "Now restricted to cases in which
there is comparison (expressed or implied) with other things of the
same kind"?

I am sorry I seem to have failed to provide the criterion I am
actually after, that is, when was quality first applied (as a measure
of recommendability, i. e., the tradesman's sense) to _actions_ (I
thought that 'excellence' implied this - this was why I supplied the
golfer citation -, but was apparently wrong)? Easy to produce
misunderstandings here, I realize.

Quote:

FWIW, "quality control" is dated to 1935, "quality-tested" to 1938, and
"quality assurance" to 1940.

Thanks a lot. That's reassuring.

--

Florian v. Savigny

(If you are going to reply in private, please be patient, as I only
check for mail something like once a week. - Si vous allez répondre
personellement, patientez s.v.p., car je ne lis les courriels
qu'environ une fois par semaine.)

Ben Zimmer
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 12:01 pm Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

"Florian v. Savigny" wrote:

Quote:

I am sorry I seem to have failed to provide the criterion I am
actually after, that is, when was quality first applied (as a measure
of recommendability, i. e., the tradesman's sense) to _actions_ (I
thought that 'excellence' implied this - this was why I supplied the
golfer citation -, but was apparently wrong)? Easy to produce
misunderstandings here, I realize.

I think you're picking up on a nuance that has yet to be reflected in
the OED entry for "quality" -- thus far, the entries and citations
extend the term only to persons and things, not to actions. Perhaps the
forthcoming OED3 entry will provide further shades of meaning.

Quote:

FWIW, "quality control" is dated to 1935, "quality-tested" to 1938, and
"quality assurance" to 1940.

Thanks a lot. That's reassuring.

A quick look at the Proquest database suggests that these terms go back
at least to the '20s. Perhaps the early 20th-century focus on quality
control/testing/assurance led to a subtle shift in the meaning of
"quality" -- transferred from products being tested to the act of
manufacturing those products, or extended from goods to services.

We would need more citations to track these shifts, but the following
Proquest headlines suggest that "quality" was already extended to
"service" around 1920:

Obligations Just Begin with Sale; Dealer Finds
Quite a Job on His Hands; Sales may Stand or Fall
on the Quality of the Service Department.
Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1916

Tire Experts Keep Eyes on Quality of Service.
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1917

New York Telephone Service is Normal; Vice-President
McCulloh Says That the Company Has Succeeded in
Bringing Service Up to the Pre-War Quality.
Wall Street Journal, Feb 21, 1921

Amer. Telephone & Telegraph; Quality of Service
in 1921 Above Pre-War Standards and Service Demand
Continues Unabated.
Wall Street Journal, Jan 16, 1922

Robin Bignall
Guest

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:01 pm Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:13:58 +0100, sawitzky2000@yahoo.de (Florian v.
Savigny) wrote:

Quote:

themselves, and was all the rage in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In
the UK it was known as BS5750; internationally as ISO9000. It involves
such concepts as all management processes being documented, and all
such documents having an owner, date, updating schedule etc. This
applied to the management of services as well as the management of the
production of goods, and when applied properly and taken seriously it
highlighted those areas of business that were driven sloppily by a
'seat of the pants' approach and tried to rationalise them. Part of
the philosophy became law in the UK; it is mandatory that all workers
have a written and mutually-agreed job description, for example.

In practice, it often became a bureaucrat's dream, in my opinion. Most
companies I knew used to appoint some junior management grunt to be
"responsible" for the process, and shelves would be filled with
documents that were up to date, according to the rules, but which had
only a little connection with reality. In order to get "BS5750
Approved" (or some similar designation) on their headed notepaper,
companies would have to submit to an inspection from the British
Standards Institute on an annual basis.

Here is one person's view:
http://www.zyra.org.uk/accredit.htm

"I've been involved (reluctantly) in quality since 1992 but my real
job is chemistry/computers. I am the Operations Manager, IT Manager
and general scape goat of a small chemical company. Because of the
consultants recommendations (who was there for 2 days) a person had to
be appointed to be deputy quality manager (in a company with 6 people
at the time). The problem is that I had absolutely no control over the
actions of the other people since it consisted of three directors and
two sons of directors (there are now three). There were more chiefs
than indians.

I agree with much of what you say in your article, that many systems
are there simply to satisfy the paperwork rather than aim at real
quality of service and quality of product."

Here is one of the companies which sprang up to help implement ISO9000
for *your* business.
http://www.isoinabox.co.uk/table.html

I like the document quality management involved in producing
"requirem ents".

Yet another view from a practitioner.
http://www.zyra.org.uk/iso9002.htm

"This write-up is a personal opinion based on my own experiences. If
you own a GOOD company that has got these certifications, my advice
is: Don't take the hump! Instead, take the certificate and tear it up!

ISO9002 accreditation
and BS5750 - You might imagine that to see that emblazonned (sic)
on a company means it is good. NOT SO! In fact, if I see a company
advertising "We are ISO9002 accredited" I consider almost a mark of
SHAME."

Quote:

I would expect it to have first occurred around 1950 or so. I
understand the OED1 was issued earlier than that.

I did not become aware of this particular meaning of 'quality
management', as opposed to 'quality control', until the early 1990s.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Hertfordshire
England

Peter Moylan
Guest

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:00 am Post subject: Re: Particular meaning of "quality". Since when (any OED use

Jess Askin infrared:

Quote:

"Florian v. Savigny" <sawitzky2000@yahoo.de> wrote in message
news:m21xesbdpl.fsf@yahoo.de...

"Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> writes:

Er, and while we're at it: can anybody tell when "quality
management" (the English word) first occurred?

Meaning "quality control"? (Not that I know. Or that I'd expect to
find it in my OED1.)

I think it is not the same thing, quality control being rather a
predecessor of QM. The former merely means controlling the end product
and discarding what's faulty, AFAIK, while the latter aims to define
and control ALL processes (i. e. what's done) involved in the
production of a good in order to optimize them (the end is the same,
of course: a good product).

I cannot agree with those last two words. It is about _uniformity_
of product. The traditional "quality control", which has been around
for a long time, is a set of statistical techniques for sampling the
output of a production line. If, for example, your sausages must
be 15cm long, plus or minus 3mm, then there are techniques available
to calculate exactly how many sausages must be measured in order to
have a reasonable confidence that the entire batch is the right size.
If the variability is excessive, there's something wrong with the
process that needs to be fixed. If the consistency is too good then
the inspectors have been cooking the books.

Note that this is applicable to certain industrial processes where
uniformity of product is paramount. Nobody, to my knowledge, has
ever managed to find a comparable technique for any business that
involves any intellectual activity. It simply doesn't apply to
situations where "quality" means something other than mindless
uniformity.

If, for example, you have a restaurant whose only product is a line
of hamburgers that look and taste like scouring pads, and they're
all exactly the same size, then by doing the right paperwork you
can get Quality certification for your restaurant. But if you then
decide to add some edible food to your menu you risk losing that
certification, because your food is no longer uniformly bad.

Quote:

Japanese companies came up with a number of ideas along these lines, and
as I recall it they started leaking out into other countries some
time in the 1980s. The most successful of these was what they called
"quality circles", where there were regular meetings of ALL the staff,
from the managing director down to the floor-sweeper, so that the
workers could have some input into management decisions. The reason
this worked so well was that there were things obvious to the factory
workers that the managers would otherwise never get to know. It might
turn out, for example, that the floor-sweeper was the only person who
knew that some of the product regularly fell off the conveyor belt
as it turned a corner.

Other Japanese "quality" innovations were the introduction of healthy
food into company cafeterias, and daily exercise sessions before
the start of work.

When these ideas travelled to Western countries the part about worker
participation was obviously wrong, so that was dropped. Instead
we got things with names like Quality Assurance and Total Quality
Management whose primary goal was the production of huge masses of
paperwork, with the aim of achieving the holy "uniformly bad"
state, and whose corollary was an almost total separation between
workers and management.

Amazingly this did not produce the slightest improvement in
productivity - quite the opposite - but this problem was solved by
redefining "productivity". Today the most successful and productive
companies produce nothing at all, and their managers are getting
huge salaries and bonuses for their success in reaching this point.
The bonuses get even higher if they succeed in driving the share
price down.

If you want a picture of mindless bureaucracy gone stark staring
bonkers, try going through an ISO 9000 certification exercise.
(I think I have the number of the standard correct, but it's been
a while since I looked.) I was once employed as a "technical
expert" consultant on one of these. After a couple of days of
things like measuring the size of filing cabinets, and especially
after the discovery that I was not permitted to look at the
quality of what the company was actually producing, I informed
the insurance company that was doing the certification that my
professional ethics prevented me from doing any more such
certifications, and that they should take me off their list of
consultants. I got the impression that this was normal for them,
and that they never got the same consultant to come back twice.

The entire question of the difference between "quality" and "Quality"
was nicely explored in the book "Zen and the art of motorcycle
maintenance". As far as I know, the author wrote this book well before
the QA plague hit the planet. Also, as far as I know no PHM
has ever read this book.

--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)

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