New Technical and Educational Directions for Managing Product Quality

Product quality has high visibility in today's economic environment. It is now widely acknowledged that most quality problems are .management. or .systems. problems requiring .statistics. in their solution.This article explores the respective roles of .business philosophy .management systems .technology systems in the attainment of consistently high product quality.To meet today's needs, greater attention will have to be given to the balance and the interrelationships of these three facets.The quality technology systems require new directions and new emphases in statistics, software engineering, and other disciplines in order to be cost-effective.Most important is widespread education in the statistical tools needed for these new directions.education by industry, universities, and technical societies.For the universities there is the promise of increased student enrollments because of the recognized economic importance of quality management and the promise of challenging research problems whose solutions are of direct importance to our economy.