Harold Dodge, one of the founders of quality management, changed our view on quality with a vital statement: “You cannot inspect quality into the product.”. The only problem with this statement is that it is decades old yet not nearly fully adopted by manufacturing organizations or even their quality functions.

And I have always believed that a good quality control department always start building their quality system with the end in mind. Specifically, what does the customer truly value? It may not be exactly what they say they care about. A good Quality control Department must be able to take the customers feedback, their observation and good data on their behaviors to understand the customer’s true values.

And the above fact is the clear line that separates a Good QA department from a not so effective one.