Fundamentals Of Quality Control And Improvement, Fourth Edition

Incorporating modern ideas, methods, and philosophies of quality management, Fundamentals of Quality Control and Improvement, Fourth Edition presents a quantitative approach to management-oriented techniques and enforces the integration of statistical concepts into quality assurance methods. Utilizing a sound theoretical foundation and illustrating procedural techniques through real-world examples, this timely new edition bridges the gap between statistical quality control and quality management. The book promotes a unique "do it right the first time" approach and focuses on the use of experimental design concepts as well as the Taguchi method for creating product/process designs that successfully incorporate customer needs, improve lead time, and reduce costs. Further management-oriented topics of discussion include total quality management; quality function deployment; activity-based costing; balanced scorecard; benchmarking; failure mode and effects criticality analysis; quality auditing; vendor selection and certification; and the Six Sigma quality philosophy. Topics new to this edition include risk adjustment, capability indices, and model building using regression. Over one-fourth of the examples, exercises, and chapter case studies have been deleted with replacement counterparts.

Amitava Mitra, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Systems and Technology and former associate dean in the College of Business at Auburn University, Alabama. He has published over seventy journal articles and currently teaches in the areas of quality assurance and improvement. Dr. Mitra has over thirty years of academic and professional experience, and has conducted courses for professionals in total quality management, quality assurance and statistical process control, design of experiments, and Six Sigma Black Belt training.