3P: the production preparation process is a tool used for designing lean manufacturing environments. It is a highly disciplined, standardized model. 3P results in the development of an improved production process where low waste levels are achieved at low capital cost.

5S: a lean tool used for workplace organisation and standardisation. Benefits include prompt problem detection and clear standards. In addition, routine disciplines are established to keep the workplace in order and ensure that materials are in the correct location to maximise productivity. The 5Ss are sifting, sweeping, sorting, sanitising and sustaining.

8D is a problem-solving methodology for product and process improvement. It is structured into eight disciplines, emphasizing team synergy. 

Accreditation Certification by a duly recognized body of the facilities, capability, objectivity, competence, and integrity of an agency, service or operational group or individual to provide the specific service(s) or operation(s) needed.

Accredited Registrars  Qualified organizations certified by a national body (e.g., the Registrar Accreditation Board in the U. S.) to perform audits to the QS-9000 and to register the audited facility as meeting these requirements for a given commodity.

Activity-based costing: an accounting system that assigns costs to products based on the amount of resources used to design, order or make a product.

AIAG  Automotive Industry Action Group

Andon board: a visual control device in a production area, such as a lighted overhead display. It communicates the current status of the production system and alerts team members to emerging problems.

ANSI  American National Standards Institute

AQL  Acceptable quality level

AS9100  Quality system requirements for suppliers to the aerospace industry (previously known as AS9000).

ASQ  American Society for Quality

Assessment  An evaluation process including a document review, an on-site audit and an analysis and report. (see Quality audit)

Assignable cause  See Special cause

ASTM  American Society for Testing and Materials

Attributes  Qualitative data that can be counted for recording and analysis. Examples include characteristics such as the presence of a required label and the installation of all required fasteners.

Audit   Systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are fulfilled. 

Audit client  Organization or person requesting an audit. 

Audit conclusion  Outcome of an audit provided by the audit team after consideration of the audit objectives and all audit findings. 

Audit criteria  Set of policies, procedures or requirements used as a reference (while conducting an audit). 

Audit evidence  Records, statements of fact or other information which are relevant to the audit criteria and verifiable.  

Audit findings  Results of the evaluation of the collected audit evidence against audit criteria.  

Audit program  Set of one or more audits planned for a specific time frame and directed towards a specific purpose.  

Audit team  One or more auditors conducting an audit.  

Auditee   Organization being audited.  

Auditor   Person with the competence to conduct an audit.  

Availability  The ability of an item to perform its designated function when required for use. 

Average or mean  The most common expression of the centring of a distribution. It is calculated by totalling the observed values and dividing by the number of observations. 

Balancing the line: the process of evenly distributing both the quantity and variety of work across available work time, avoiding overburden and under use of resources. This eliminates bottlenecks and downtime, which translates into shorter flow time.

Benchmark Data The results of an investigation to determine how competitors and/or best-in-class companies achieve their level of performance. 

Bimodal Distribution   A distribution with two identifiable curves within it, indicating a mixing of two populations such as different shifts, machines, workers, etc. 

BS  British Standard

BSI  British Standards Institution 

CAI  Computer aided inspection

Capability  The total range of inherent variation in a stable process. (See Process Capability)  

CASCO  ISO Committee on Conformity Assessments 

CC  Critical characteristic 

CE Mark  European Union product safety certification symbol:  

Cell: an arrangement of people, machines, materials and equipment--with the processing steps placed right next to each other in sequential order--through which parts are processed in a continuous flow. The most common cell layout is a U shape.

CEN  European Committee for Standardization 

CENELEC  European Committee for Electro-technical Standardization 

Certificate of compliance  A document signed by an authorized party affirming that the supplier of a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation. 

Certificate of conformance (Certificate of conformity)  A document signed by an authorized party affirming that a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation. 

Certification  The procedure and action by a duly authorized body of determining, verifying, and attesting in writing to the qualifications of personnel, processes, procedures, or items in accordance with applicable requirements. 

Chaku-Chaku: a Japanese word that means "load-load." It is a method of conducting single-piece flow in which the operator proceeds from machine to machine, taking a part from the previous operation and loading it in the next machine, then taking the part just removed from that machine and loading it in the following machine. Chaku-chaku lines allow different parts of a production process to be completed by one operator, eliminating the need to move around large batches of work-in-progress inventory.

Characteristic  Distinguishing feature  

CIM  Computer Integrated Manufacturing

Common Cause  A source of variation that is always present as part of the random variation inherent in the process itself. Its origin can usually be traced to an element of the system which only management can correct. 

Competence   Demonstrated ability to apply knowledge skills.  

Compliance  An affirmative indication or judgment that the supplier of a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation; also the state of meeting the requirements. 

Component  Any raw material, substance, piece, part, software, firmware, labelling, or assembly which is intended to be included as part of the finished, packaged, and labelled device. 

Concession   Permission to use or release a product that does not conform to specified requirements.  See Waiver

Conformance  An affirmative indication or judgment that a product or service has met the requirements of the relevant specifications, contract, or regulation; also the state of meeting the requirements. 

Conformity   Fulfilment of a requirement.  

Conformity The fulfilling by an item or service of specification requirements. 

Continual improvement  Recurring activity to increase the ability to fulfil requirements.  

Continuous flow: a concept where items are processed and moved directly from one processing step to the next, one piece at a time. Also referred to as "one piece flow" and "single piece flow."

Control Chart  A graphic representation of a characteristic of a process, showing plotted values of some statistic gathered from that characteristic, and one or two control limits. 

Control Limit  A line (or lines) on a control chart used as a basis for judging the significance of the variation from subgroup to subgroup. Variation beyond a control limit is evidence that special causes are affecting the process. Control limits are calculated from process data and are not to be confused with engineering specifications. 

Control Plans  Written descriptions of the systems for controlling parts and processes. 

Correction   Action to eliminate a detected nonconformity.  

Corrective action  Action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity or other undesirable situation.  

Corrective Action Plan  A plan for correcting a process or part quality issue. 

CQA  Certified Quality Auditor

CQE  Certified Quality Engineer

CQMgr  Certified quality manager 

CRE  Certified Reliability Engineer

Customer   Organization or person that receives a product.  

Customer satisfaction  Customer's perception of the degree to which the customer's requirements have been fulfilled.  

Cycle time: the time required to complete one cycle of an operation. If cycle time for every operation in a complete process can be reduced to equal takt time, products can be made in single-piece flow.

Defect   Non-fulfilment of a requirement related to an intended or specified use.   

Dependability   Collective term used to describe the availability performance and its influencing factors: reliability performance, maintainability performance and maintenance support performance.  

Design and development  Set of processes that transforms requirements into specified characteristics or into the specification of a product, process or system.  

Design Failure  Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA) An analytical technique used by a design responsible engineer/team as a means to assure, to the extent possible, that potential failure modes and, their associated causes/mechanisms have been considered and addressed. 

Design for Manufacturability and Assembly A simultaneous engineering process designed to optimize the relationship between design function, manufacturability, and ease of assembly. 

Design input  The physical and performance requirements of a device that are used as a basis for device design. 

Design review  A documented, comprehensive, systematic examination of a design to evaluate the adequacy of the design requirements, to evaluate the capability of the design to meet these requirements, and to identify problems. 

Design Validation  Establishing by objective evidence that device specifications conform with user needs and intended use(s). 

Design Validation Testing to ensure that product conforms to defined user needs and/or requirements. Design validation follows successful design verification and is normally performed on the final product under defined operating conditions. Multiple validations may be performed if there are different intended uses. 

Design Verification Testing to ensure that all design outputs meet design input requirements.

Detection or inspection   A past-oriented strategy that attempts to identify unacceptable output after it has been produced and separate it from the good output. (See Prevention and Nonconforming) 

Deviation permit   Written authorization, prior to production or provision of a service, to depart from specified requirements for a specified quantity or for a specified time. 

Deviation permit Permission to depart from the originally specified requirements of a product prior to realization.  

DFA  Design for assembly

DFM  Design for manufacturing 

DFMEA  Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis 

DIN  Germany Standards Institute

Distribution  The population (universe) from which observations are drawn, categorized into cells, and form identifiable patterns. It is based on the concept of variation that states that anything measured repeatedly will arrive at different results. These results will fall into statistically predictable patterns. A bell-shaped curve (normal distribution) is an example of a distribution in which the greatest number of observations occur in the centre with fewer and fewer observations falling evenly on either side of the average. 

Document   Information and its supporting medium.  

Documentation  Written material defining the process to be followed (e.g. test procedure, quality manual, operation sheets). 

DOE  Design of Experiments

Durability The probability that an item will continue to function at customer expectation levels, at the useful life without requiring overhaul or rebuild due to wear out. 

EC  European Community 

Effectiveness   Extent to which planned activities are realized and planned results achieved.  

Efficacy  (see effectiveness below)

Efficiency   Relationship between the result achieved and the resources used.  

EFTA  European Free Trade Association 

EN  European Standard 

EQS  European Committee for Quality System Assessment and Certification 

Error proofing: a process used to prevent errors from occurring or to immediately point out a defect as it occurs. If defects don’t get passed down an assembly line, throughput and quality improve. See "poka-yoke."

ETSI  European Telecommunications Standards Institute 

Feeder lines: a series of special assembly lines that allow assemblers to perform preassembly tasks off the main production line. Performing certain processes off the main production line means fewer parts in the main assembly area, the availability of service-ready components and assemblies in the main production area, improved quality and less lead time to build a product.

Flow: the progressive achievement of tasks along the value stream so that a product proceeds from design to launch, order to delivery, and raw materials into the hands of the customer with no stoppages, scrap or backflows.

FMEA method (FMECA)  Failure Mode and Effect (and Criticality) Analysis, a powerful method of risk assessment and failure analysis for use in risk management and product liability control. (see Risk Analysis article)

Frequency distribution  A statistical table that presents a large volume of data in such a way that the central tendency (average/mean/median) and distribution are clearly displayed. 

FTA  Fault Tree Analysis

Functional Verification  Testing to ensure the part conforms to all customer and supplier engineering performance and material requirements. 

GD&T  Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing

GMP  Good Manufacturing Practice

GR&R  Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility

Grade   Category or rank given to different quality requirements for products, processes or systems having the same functional use.  

Heijunka: the creation of a "level schedule" by sequencing orders in a repetitive pattern and smoothing the day-to-day orders to correspond to longer-term demand.

Histogram  See Frequency distribution

Hoshin Kanri:  a strategic decision making tool that focuses resources on the critical initiatives necessary to accomplish the business objectives of the company

IEC  International Electro-technical Commission 

IEEE  Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 

Infrastructure (of an organization)  System of facilities, equipment and services needed for the operation of an organization.  

Inspection   Conformity evaluation by observation and judgement accompanied as appropriate by measurement, testing or gauging.  

Inspection  Activities, such as measuring, examining, testing, gauging one or more characteristics of a product or service, and comparing these with specified requirements to determine conformity. 

Interested party  Person or group having an interest in the performance or success of an organization.  

ISO  International Organization for Standards 

ISO 14000 International environmental management system standard administered by ISO 

ISO 9000  International Standard for Quality Systems (see ISO 9000 Fans and ISO 9000:2000)

JIGS  Japan Industrial Standards

JUSE  Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers

Just-in-time: a system for producing and delivering the right items at the right time in the right amounts. The key elements of just in time are flow, pull, standard work and takt time.

Kaikaku: radical improvement of an activity to eliminate waste.

Kaizen Taken from the Japanese words kai and zen, where kai means change and zen means good. The popular meaning is continual improvement of all areas of a company not just quality. 

Kaizen: a Japanese word that means "continuous improvement." It refers to  incremental improvement of an activity to create more value with less waste. A kaizen event is a highly focused, action-oriented workshop that typically involves a team of five to 15 individuals. It usually lasts three to five days. The goal of a kaizen event is to concentrate on improving one specific process.

Kanban: a Japanese word that means "card" or "visible record." It refers to a small card attached to boxes of parts that regulates pull by signalling upstream production and delivery.

Kitting: a process in which assemblers are supplied with kits--a box of parts, fittings and tools--for each task they perform. This eliminates time-consuming trips from one parts bin, tool crib or supply centre to another to get the necessary material.

LCL  Lower control limit (see Control limit)

Lead time: the total time a customer must wait to receive a product after placing an order.

Lean manufacturing: a manufacturing philosophy that shortens the time between the customer order and the product build and shipment by eliminating sources of waste. It attacks waste within a plant or process; waste elimination results in cost reduction

Lot or batch  One or more components or finished devices that consist of a single type, model, class, size, composition, or software version that are manufactured under essentially the same conditions and that are intended to have uniform characteristics and quality within specified limits. 

LSL  Lower specification limit (see Specification)

Maintainability Ability of an item under stated conditions of use to be retained in, or restored to, within a given period of time, a specified state in which it can perform its required functions when maintenance is performed under stated conditions and while using prescribed procedures and resources. 

Maintainability The probability that a failed system can be made operable in a specified interval or downtime. 

Management   Coordinated activities to direct and control an organization.  

Management system  System to establish policy and objectives and to achieve those objectives.  

MBNQA  Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (see MBNQA)

Measurement control system  Set of interrelated or interacting elements necessary to achieve metrological confirmation and continual control of measurement processes.   

Measurement process  Set of operations to determine the value of a quantity.  

Measuring equipment  Measuring instrument, software, measurement standard, reference material or auxiliary apparatus or combination thereof necessary to realize a measurement process.  

Metrological characteristic  Distinguishing feature which can influence the results of measurement.  

Metrological confirmation  Set of operations required to ensure that measuring equipment conforms to the requirements for its intended use.  

Metrological function  Function with organizational responsibility for defining and implementing the measurement control system.  

Monument: any design, scheduling or production technology with scale requirements necessitating that designs, orders and products be brought to the machine to wait in queue for processing. The opposite of a right-sized machine.

MRB  Material review board

MSA  Measurement System Analysis 

MTBF  Mean time between failures

Muda : Japanese term for waste. See "waste".

NACCB  National Accreditation Council for Certification Bodies (UK) 

NDT  Nondestructive testing

NIST  National Institute of Science and Technology

Non-conformance  Product or material which does not conform to the customer requirements or specifications. 

Nonconformities  Specific occurrences of a condition that does not conform to specifications or other inspection standards; sometimes called discrepancies or defects 

Nonconformity   Non-fulfilment of a requirement.  

Nonconformity A process which does not conform to a quality system requirement.  

Nonconformity The non-fulfilment of specified requirements. 

Normal Distribution  See Distribution

Numerical reliability  The probability that an item will perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated period of time. (See MTBF)  

Objective evidence  Data supporting the existence or verity of something,  

One-piece flow: the opposite of batch production. Instead of building many products and then holding them in queue for the next step in the process, products go through each step in the process one at a time, without interruption. It improves quality and lowers costs.

Organization   Group of people and facilities with an arrangement of responsibilities, authorities and relationships.  

Organizational structure  Arrangement of responsibilities, authorities and relationships between people.  

Parts Per Million (PPM)  PPM is a way of stating the performance of a process in terms of actual or projected defective material. 

PFMEA  Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis

Point of use: a technique that ensures people have exactly what they need to do their job--the right work instructions, parts, tools and equipment--where and when they need them.

Poka-yoke: a Japanese word that refers to a mistake-proofing device or procedure used to prevent a defect during the production process. See "error proofing."

Population  The universe of data under investigation from which a sample will be taken. 

Prevention  A future-oriented strategy that improves quality by directing analysis and action toward correcting the production process. Prevention is consistent with a philosophy of never-ending improvement. 

Preventive action  Action to eliminate the cause of a potential nonconformity or other undesirable potential situation.  

Procedure   Specified way to carry out an activity or a process.  

Process   Set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs.  

Process  The combination of people, machine and equipment, raw materials, methods, and environment that produces a given product or service. 

Process Capability The measured, built-in reproducibility (consistency) of the product turned out by the process. Such a determination is made using statistical methods, not wishful thinking. The statistically determined pattern or distribution can only then be compared to specification limits to decide if a process can consistently deliver product within those parameters. 

Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) An analytical technique used by a manufacturing responsible engineer/team as a means to assure that, to the extent possible, potential failure modes and their associated