Quality Management Glossary

5

5-Why – Five Whys Analysis

Ask why the problem happened, then ask why again about the answer, five times over. Each round strips away a symptom until you reach a cause you can actually change. It works best on single-cause problems and fails quietly when several causes interact, so pair it with a fishbone when the picture is muddy.

Full guide: 5-Why

5S – Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain

Five steps for organizing a workplace so the right thing is within reach and anything out of place is visible. The last step carries the method — the first four are done in a weekend and undone in a month without it. Its quality value is that abnormal conditions become obvious.

5W2H – Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, How Much

Seven questions that force a problem description to be complete before anyone starts solving. Most failed investigations trace back to a vague problem statement, and this is the cheapest guard against that. Use it at the start of an 8D so D2 describes something specific rather than a feeling.

Full guide: 5W2H

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8

8D – Eight Disciplines Problem Solving

A structured eight-step report your customer will ask for after a complaint. It moves from containment through root cause to permanent corrective action, and closes by checking the fix held. Most automotive customers set a deadline for D3 containment within 24 hours, which is why the first day matters more than the rest.

Full guide: 8D

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A

A3 Report – A3 Problem Solving Sheet

One sheet of A3 paper carrying the whole story: background, current state, target, analysis, countermeasures and follow-up. The size limit is the method — if it does not fit, you have not understood the problem well enough yet. Popular where an 8D would be too heavy for the situation.

Full guide: A3 Report

Action Management

The discipline of making sure agreed actions actually happen: one owner, one date, one measurable result, and a review that catches the ones drifting. Most quality systems fail here rather than in analysis — the causes were found, the actions were written down, and nobody closed them.

Full guide: Action Management

APQP – Advanced Product Quality Planning

The planning framework that runs from concept to first production shipment, split into five phases with defined outputs at each gate. It exists so quality problems surface in design reviews instead of at the customer. APQP produces the evidence you later submit as a PPAP package.

Standard: AIAG APQP, 2nd Edition

AQL – Acceptable Quality Level

The worst average defect rate a sampling plan will still accept as a lot, set with the sampling tables of ISO 2859-1. Read the name carefully: it defines an acceptable level of defects. Useful for receiving inspection of low-risk goods, and a contradiction of zero-defect thinking wherever a customer receives the escapes.

Standard: ISO 2859-1

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B

BCP – Business Continuity Plan

The prepared answer to losing something you depend on: a plant, a supplier, a tool, a system. Automotive customers require it because a single sub-supplier fire can stop a vehicle line. A plan that has never been rehearsed is a document, not a capability.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Chapter 6.1.2.3

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C

Calibration Management

Keeping measuring equipment traceable, in date and fit for the tolerance it judges. When a gauge is found out of calibration, every measurement since the last valid check is in question — which is why the interval and the recall process matter more than the certificate on the wall.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 7.1.5

CAPA – Corrective and Preventive Action

Two different things people habitually merge. Corrective action removes the cause of a problem that happened; preventive action removes the cause of one that has not. Most systems are strong on the first and empty on the second, which is why the same problem keeps appearing on a different part.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 10.2

Change Management

The controlled path any change to product, process, material or supplier has to take: assess, approve, validate, inform, implement. In automotive an unannounced change is a serious finding on its own, independent of whether the part still works. Customer notification requirements are contractual.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Chapter 8.5.6

Check Sheet – Tally Sheet, Frequency Sheet

A prepared form where the operator marks each occurrence as it happens, so counting is a by-product of the work rather than a separate job. Simple to the point of looking primitive, and still the fastest way to turn a vague complaint into a Pareto chart within one shift.

Full guide: Check Sheet

Checklist

A fixed list of steps or checks worked through in order, so nothing depends on someone remembering under pressure. Its value rises exactly where experience is highest, because experienced people skip steps they have done a thousand times. Keep it short enough that people actually use it.

Full guide: Checklist

CoC – Certificate of Conformance

A supplier's signed statement that a delivery meets the specified requirements, shipped with the goods. It is a declaration, not evidence — the measurement data behind it stays at the supplier. Accept it where the supplier's capability is proven, and audit the basis for it where the part is critical.

Control Chart – Statistical Process Control Chart

Plots measurements over time against limits calculated from the process itself, not from the drawing tolerance. That distinction is the whole point: it tells you whether the process changed, not whether the part is good. Reacting to normal variation as if it were a signal makes processes worse, not better.

Full guide: Control Chart

Control Limits – UCL and LCL, Upper and Lower Control Limit

The upper and lower boundaries on a control chart, calculated from the process data itself — usually three standard deviations either side of the mean. They are not tolerance limits and should never be confused with them. A point outside says the process changed; it says nothing about whether the part is still good.

Standard: AIAG SPC, 2nd Edition

Full guide: Control Limits

Control Plan

The document that says, for every characteristic, what gets measured, how often, by what method and what happens when it drifts. It is the bridge between the FMEA and the shop floor — a risk identified in the FMEA that never reaches the control plan has not actually been controlled.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Annex A

Cp – Process Capability Index

Compares how wide your tolerance is against how wide your process spread is. A Cp of 1.33 means the tolerance is a third wider than the variation, which is the usual automotive minimum. Cp ignores where the process sits inside the tolerance, so a centered and a drifted process can score alike.

Cpk – Process Capability Index, Centered

The honest version of Cp. It measures the distance from the process mean to the nearer tolerance limit, so drift off center pulls the number down. When Cpk sits well below Cp, your process is capable but aimed wrong — a setup problem, not a variation problem. Customers typically require 1.33.

CTQ – Critical to Quality

The handful of measurable characteristics a customer genuinely judges the product by, derived from their requirements rather than assumed. Naming them focuses inspection and capability work where it pays. When everything is critical, nothing is, and control plans become unaffordable.

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D

Document Control

Making sure the version in use is the current one and obsolete copies cannot be picked up by mistake. Unglamorous, and behind a steady share of defects: someone worked correctly to a drawing that had been superseded three months earlier. Control the point of use, not the archive.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 7.5

DOE – Design of Experiments

Varies several factors together in a planned pattern so you learn which ones matter and how they interact, in far fewer runs than changing one thing at a time. It is the only reliable way to find interactions — and interactions are usually why one-factor-at-a-time trials keep failing.

DPMO – Defects Per Million Opportunities

Defects counted against every place a defect could occur, not against parts. It lets a simple bracket and a complex wiring harness be compared on the same scale. The catch is the definition of an opportunity — inflate the count and the figure improves without a single real defect disappearing from the product.

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F

FAI – First Article Inspection

A complete dimensional and functional check of the first part off a new or changed production process, against every characteristic on the drawing. It proves the process can make the part as designed before volume starts. In aerospace the format is fixed by AS9102; in automotive the same job sits inside PPAP.

Standard: AS9102

Fault Tree Analysis – FTA

Starts from an undesired event and works downward through the logical combinations that could produce it, using and-gates and or-gates. Unlike a fishbone it handles causes that only bite together. Heavier to build, and worth it where a failure is rare but the consequence is serious.

Standard: IEC 61025

Flow Chart – Process Flow Diagram

Draws the process as it actually runs, step by step, with the decision points made visible. Teams routinely discover during the drawing that two shifts run the process differently — which is often the answer to the problem they sat down to solve. It is also the backbone of a process FMEA.

Full guide: Flow Chart

FMEA – Failure Mode and Effects Analysis

A structured way to find what can go wrong before it does. Your team lists potential failure modes, rates each for severity, occurrence and detection, and works the highest risks first. Done early it is cheap prevention; done after a complaint it is paperwork. Automotive suppliers need it for IATF 16949.

Standard: AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook, 1st Edition 2019

Full guide: FMEA

FQC – Final Quality Control

The check of finished product against specification before it is packed. It is the last chance to find a defect inside your own walls, and the most expensive place to find it — every value-adding step has already been paid for. A high reject rate at final inspection is a process signal, not an inspection success.

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G

Gage R&R – Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility

Measures how much of your observed variation comes from the measuring system itself: the same operator measuring twice, and different operators measuring the same part. Above roughly thirty percent of the tolerance, the gauge cannot reliably tell good parts from bad ones. It is the core study inside every measurement system analysis.

Standard: AIAG MSA, 4th Edition

Gemba Walk – Go and See

Going to where the work happens and watching it, rather than reading about it in a report. Reports describe the process as designed; the floor shows it as run. Almost every long-standing problem contains a difference between those two that nobody in the meeting room could have named.

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H

Histogram

Shows how measurements distribute across their range, turning a column of numbers into a shape you can read at a glance. Two peaks usually mean two populations mixed together — two machines, two operators, two batches of material. That split is often the finding, not the spread itself.

Full guide: Histogram

Hoshin Kanri – Policy Deployment

Breaks a few company-level goals down through every level so each team knows which of its actions serve them, and negotiates the targets rather than assigning them. Its purpose is subtraction — choosing the three things that matter so the other thirty stop competing for the same people.

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I

IATF 16949 – Automotive Quality Management Standard

The quality management standard every automotive supplier is certified against. It builds on ISO 9001 and adds what carmakers insist on: production part approval, capability evidence, layered audits and supplier development. You cannot hold IATF 16949 without an ISO 9001-conforming system underneath it.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016

Incident Management

The path an unplanned event takes from the moment it is noticed to the moment it is closed: record, assess, contain, assign, resolve, verify. Without it, small events get handled informally and never enter the data — so the pattern behind them stays invisible until it becomes a complaint.

Full guide: Incident Management

Internal Audit

Your own check of whether the system works as described and as required, run by people independent of the area examined. Done well it finds problems before the customer does. Done as a certificate ritual it produces findings on document numbering and misses everything that matters.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 9.2

IPQC – In-Process Quality Control

Checks made at defined stages during production rather than at the end. Its value lies in position — a defect caught at the station that created it costs a fraction of one found at final inspection, and it points straight at its cause. The control plan defines what gets checked, where and how often.

IQC – Incoming Quality Control

Checking purchased material before it enters production. Treat it as a filter rather than a control: it catches what a supplier already released, at your cost, after transport. Where a supplier is genuinely capable it should be reduced deliberately — where it is not, sorting at goods-in is a symptom.

Is / Is-Not Analysis – Kepner-Tregoe Problem Specification

Describes not only where the problem appears but equally where it does not, and the gap between the two narrows the search. If only the night shift is affected, or only one cavity, the boundary itself carries the cause. It is the sharpest tool available before any data collection starts.

Full guide: Is / Is-Not Analysis

Ishikawa – Cause and Effect Diagram, Fishbone

Sorts possible causes into branches — usually machine, method, material, man, measurement and environment — so a team can see the whole problem space instead of arguing about one favourite theory. It collects hypotheses; it does not prove them. Take the branches you rank highest into data or a 5-Why.

Full guide: Ishikawa

ISIR – Initial Sample Inspection Report

The measurement report on the first parts made with series tooling and processes, checked against every drawing characteristic. In the German automotive world it is the core of the VDA production process and product approval, the counterpart to PPAP. The customer approves it; until then, series delivery is not released.

Standard: VDA Volume 2

ISO 14001 – Environmental Management Systems

The environmental counterpart to ISO 9001, built on the same structure so both can run as one system. It covers environmental aspects, legal obligations and improvement targets. Automotive customers increasingly ask for it alongside IATF 16949 rather than as an optional extra.

Standard: ISO 14001:2015

ISO 31000 – Risk Management — Guidelines

Guidance for handling risk at organizational level rather than product level. Unlike ISO 9001 it is not a certification standard, so it shapes how you think about risk rather than what an auditor checks. Useful as the frame above your FMEA and business continuity work.

Standard: ISO 31000:2018

ISO 45001 – Occupational Health and Safety Management

The standard for managing workplace health and safety, sharing the same high-level structure as ISO 9001 and 14001. It shifts the focus from reacting to incidents toward identifying hazards before they cause harm — the same logic an FMEA applies to product failures.

Standard: ISO 45001:2018

ISO 9001 – Quality Management Systems — Requirements

The general standard for a quality management system, used across every industry. It asks you to understand your context, manage processes, measure results and improve — without prescribing how. That freedom is why it fits everywhere and why two certified companies can look nothing alike.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015

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J

JDI – Just Do It

The honest option for problems where the cause is obvious and the fix is cheap. Not every deviation deserves an 8D, and forcing structure onto trivial problems teaches people that quality methods are bureaucracy. The discipline is knowing when a problem is genuinely small — and recording it anyway.

Full guide: JDI

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K

Kaizen – Continuous Improvement

Improvement in small steps, made by the people doing the work rather than by a project team. Its strength is volume — many small changes that would never justify a project. It needs a route for ideas to be tried quickly, otherwise it becomes a suggestion box nobody empties.

Kanban – Pull Signal System

Production is triggered by consumption rather than by a forecast: an empty container is the order to make more. It caps work in progress by design, which shortens lead time and makes quality problems surface fast — with little buffer stock, a defect stops the line instead of hiding in it.

Kano Model

Sorts product features into three kinds: expected ones nobody praises but everyone misses, performance ones where more is better, and delighters nobody asked for. It explains why meeting every specification can still leave a customer unimpressed — you satisfied the basics and offered nothing above them.

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L

Lessons Learned

What an organization carries forward from a problem so the next project does not repeat it. The hard part is not writing them but finding them again at the moment they matter, which is why they belong linked to the product, process or FMEA rather than filed in a folder nobody opens.

Full guide: Lessons Learned

LPA – Layered Process Audit

The same short set of questions checked repeatedly by different levels of management, from team leader to plant manager. Frequency and visibility do the work, not depth. It catches standards quietly eroding — the drift that a yearly system audit never sees.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Chapter 9.2.2.3

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M

Management Review

The scheduled session where top management looks at how the quality system is performing and decides what changes. It is required, and it is where a system either gets resources or quietly stops improving. Inputs without decisions make it an expensive reporting meeting.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 9.3

MRB – Material Review Board

The cross-functional group that decides what happens to nonconforming material — use as is, rework, repair, return or scrap. Its job is a disposition, not an investigation. An MRB that routinely approves use-as-is has stopped protecting the customer and started protecting delivery dates instead.

MSA – Measurement System Analysis

Checks whether your measuring process is good enough to judge the part, by separating variation caused by the gauge and the operator from real product variation. Skip it and you may be scrapping good parts or passing bad ones — and your capability figures describe your gauge, not your process.

Standard: AIAG MSA, 4th Edition

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N

NCR – Non-Conformance Report

The record that a product or process did not meet a requirement: what was found, how much is affected and what happens to it. It starts the chain rather than ending it — segregation, disposition and, where the pattern repeats, corrective action. An NCR without quantity and batch data cannot be analyzed later.

Standard: ISO 9001:2015 Chapter 8.7

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O

OEE – Overall Equipment Effectiveness

Availability times performance times quality, expressed as one percentage. Because the three multiply, a line running 90 percent on each lands at 73 percent overall — which is why a single weak factor drags the whole number down. Useful for spotting where the loss sits, misleading when compared between plants.

Full guide: OEE

OQC – Outgoing Quality Control

The final check of product, quantity, labeling and documents before shipment. It catches mix-ups that no process control sees — wrong label, wrong box, wrong quantity. What it should not be is the place where product defects are first discovered; by then the process has already failed twice.

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P

Pareto Analysis – 80/20 Rule, Pareto Chart

Ranks causes by how much they contribute and shows the cumulative line, so the few that carry most of the damage stand out. Roughly eighty percent of the effect usually comes from twenty percent of the causes. It tells you where to start, not what to do once you are there.

Full guide: Pareto Analysis

PDCA – Plan, Do, Check, Act — Deming Cycle

Plan a change, run it small, check what actually happened, then either standardize it or start again. The step organizations skip is Check, which turns improvement into a series of untested changes. Everything from ISO 9001 to a shopfloor experiment sits on this loop somewhere.

Full guide: PDCA

Poka Yoke – Error Proofing, Mistake Proofing

Design the job so the wrong action becomes impossible rather than merely forbidden. A connector that only fits one way round is poka yoke; a sign asking people to check orientation is not. The test is simple — if a tired operator on a night shift can still get it wrong, it is not error proofing.

Full guide: Poka Yoke

PPAP – Production Part Approval Process

The evidence package proving you can make the part to specification at volume, submitted before series delivery starts. It bundles drawings, FMEA, control plan, capability studies and measurement results. Customers set the submission level; level three is the common default. No approved PPAP means no shipment.

Standard: AIAG PPAP, 4th Edition

Ppk – Process Performance Index

Same arithmetic as Cpk but calculated over the whole data set including drift between batches, so it describes long-term performance rather than short-term capability. Ppk below Cpk means the process is stable in the moment but wanders over time — look at setup, tool wear or material lots.

PPM – Parts Per Million Defective

Defective parts per million delivered, the currency automotive customers use to score suppliers. Its weakness is that it counts parts rather than consequences: a thousand loose clips and one safety-relevant escape can produce the same figure while meaning entirely different things.

Problem Management

Deciding which method a given problem deserves, and steering it through to a closed root cause. A repeat complaint needs an 8D; a one-off obvious fault needs JDI. Choosing wrong costs either weeks of paperwork or a problem that returns — and the second one costs more.

Full guide: Problem Management

PSW – Part Submission Warrant

The one-page cover document of a PPAP submission, signed by the supplier to declare that all required evidence exists and the parts meet the drawing. The customer's approval of the PSW is what releases series supply. Signing it without the complete package behind it is a false declaration, not a formality.

Standard: AIAG PPAP, 4th Edition

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Q

QFD – Quality Function Deployment, House of Quality

Translates customer requirements into measurable technical characteristics through a matrix, and shows where they conflict. The conflicts are the value: it makes visible that lighter and stiffer pull against each other, so the trade-off is decided deliberately rather than by whoever draws last.

QMR – Quality Management Representative

The person appointed to keep the quality management system working and to represent it toward management and auditors. ISO 9001:2015 dropped the mandatory role, but most organizations kept it — because without a named owner, system maintenance quietly becomes nobody's task.

Quality Alert

A one-page notice that puts a defect in front of everyone who could produce or pass it on, usually within hours. Picture, description, what to do, who to call. It contains damage while the real investigation runs — it is not a substitute for finding the cause.

Full guide: Quality Alert

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R

RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

Assigns four distinct roles per task so responsibility stops being implied. The rule that carries the method is that exactly one person is accountable — the moment two names sit in that column, nobody is. Most stalled corrective actions fail this test rather than a technical one.

RCA – Root Cause Analysis

The umbrella term for getting past symptoms to the cause that, once removed, stops the problem returning. It is a goal rather than a single method — 5-Why, Ishikawa and fault tree analysis are all ways of doing it. The test is simple: can you switch the problem on and off at will?

Red Rabbit Test – Challenge Part Test

Deliberately feed a known bad part into the line to prove the detection system catches it. Without this, a poka yoke or camera check is an assumption rather than a control. Run it at defined intervals and record the result — an undetected red rabbit invalidates every part since the last test.

Full guide: Red Rabbit Test

RFT – Right First Time

The share of units or tasks completed correctly without rework, repair or repetition. It measures the process, not the inspection, because a part reworked back into specification still counts as a failure here. That makes it a far more honest indicator of hidden quality cost than final yield.

Risk Assessment

Identifying what could go wrong, judging how likely and how damaging it would be, and deciding what to do about it. FMEA is the product and process version; this is the same logic applied to projects, suppliers and the business. The output is decisions, not a filed matrix.

Standard: ISO 31000:2018

RPN – Risk Priority Number

Severity times occurrence times detection, from one to a thousand, used to rank FMEA findings. Its weakness is that very different risks can score alike: a catastrophic but rare failure may sit level with a harmless frequent one. The 2019 AIAG-VDA handbook replaced it with Action Priority for that reason.

Standard: AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook, 1st Edition 2019

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S

SCAR – Supplier Corrective Action Request

The formal demand that a supplier investigate a problem and report back, usually as an 8D with a deadline. Sending one without a clear problem statement and evidence produces a defensive answer and a lost month. Attach the data you already have and name the affected batches.

Scatter Diagram – Correlation Chart

Plots two variables against each other to show whether they move together. It reveals correlation, never causation — temperature and scrap can track each other because both follow the shift pattern. Use it to decide which factor is worth an experiment, not to declare a cause found.

Full guide: Scatter Diagram

SER – Supplier Error Report

The record of a specific defect attributed to a supplier, feeding both the scorecard and the cost recovery. Its quality decides whether later analysis is possible — a report saying only that parts were bad supports no Pareto and no supplier discussion worth having.

SIPOC – Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer

A one-page frame around a process before you improve it: who supplies what, what the process does, what comes out and who receives it. It stops improvement teams from optimizing a step while breaking the handover on either side of it. Standard opening move in a Six Sigma project.

Full guide: SIPOC

Six Sigma – DMAIC Improvement Methodology

A data-driven improvement approach running through Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. The name refers to a defect rate so low it is largely symbolic; the value lies in the discipline of measuring before changing. Heavier than an 8D and aimed at chronic problems rather than complaints.

Full guide: Six Sigma

SMED – Single Minute Exchange of Die

Cuts changeover time by moving as much preparation as possible to while the machine still runs, then simplifying what genuinely has to happen during the stop. Shorter setups make small batches affordable, and small batches mean a defect affects fewer parts before someone notices.

SOP – Standard Operating Procedure

Describes how a recurring activity is carried out, so the result does not depend on who does it. The common failure is length: a procedure nobody reads is documentation, not a standard. Write it for the person doing the job, not for the auditor reading about it.

Sorting Action – Sorting and Rework Action

Inspecting suspect stock one hundred percent to separate good from bad while the cause is still open. It is containment, it is expensive, and it is not a control — sorting has a known escape rate even when done carefully. Define the start and end of the suspect window before you begin.

Full guide: Sorting Action

SPC – Statistical Process Control

Watching a process with statistics so you act on real changes and leave normal variation alone. In practice it means control charts, capability indices and a rule for what counts as a signal. Its discipline is restraint: most damage comes from reacting to noise.

Standard: AIAG SPC, 2nd Edition

Supplier Assessment

A structured evaluation of whether a supplier can meet your requirements, carried out before award rather than after the first problem. It covers process capability, systems and capacity. Assessments done only on paper predict very little — the informative part is the visit.

Supplier Development

Investing your own people and methods to raise a supplier's capability rather than replacing them. It is the right answer when the supplier is strategically hard to swap or the problem is competence rather than will. IATF 16949 expects a defined approach, not ad-hoc rescue missions.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Chapter 8.4.2.4

Supplier Scorecard

A recurring rating combining quality, delivery and responsiveness into a picture the supplier also sees. Its worth depends on being current and on consequences following the color — a scorecard nobody acts on becomes a monthly ritual that changes no behavior on either side.

Supply Chain Alert

A warning passed along the chain when a problem may have traveled beyond your own plant — to a sub-supplier, a sister site or the customer. Sending it early costs credibility for a day; sending it late costs it permanently, because the customer usually finds out anyway.

Full guide: Supply Chain Alert

Supply Chain Survey

A structured enquiry sent to suppliers to establish who is affected by a specific risk — a material batch, a sub-component, a process change. Its worth depends entirely on asking a question narrow enough to answer honestly. Broad questionnaires come back complete and tell you nothing.

Full guide: Supply Chain Survey

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T

TPM – Total Productive Maintenance

Moves basic machine care to the people who run the equipment and plans the rest before failure rather than after. It targets the same losses OEE measures — breakdowns, setup, small stops, defects. Where maintenance is purely reactive, capability studies tend to look worse than the machine really is.

Traceability

Being able to say, for any part, which material, machine, settings and shift produced it — and conversely which parts a suspect batch reached. It does not prevent a single defect. What it does is decide whether a containment costs a pallet or a production month.

Standard: IATF 16949:2016 Chapter 8.5.2.1

Training Matrix

A grid of who is trained for which task and until when, usually with a color for expiry. It answers a question that comes up in every audit and every staffing decision: can this person do this job today? Its weakness is confusing attendance with competence.

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V

VDA 6.3 – Process Audit

The German automotive process audit, structured in seven elements from project management to customer care and scored by question. Where IATF certification asks whether a system exists, VDA 6.3 asks how well a specific process actually performs — which is why customers use it to assess suppliers.

Standard: VDA Volume 6 Part 3

VMI – Vendor Managed Inventory

The supplier owns and replenishes the stock at your site, based on consumption data you share. It shortens the reaction chain but shifts a quality question: when a defect is found in stock the supplier holds, traceability and liability have to be agreed in the contract, not afterwards.

VOC – Voice of the Customer

The structured collection of what customers actually require, in their words, before it is translated into specifications. The gap between what a customer says and what ends up on the drawing is where a surprising share of complaints originates — the part was made exactly as specified.

VSM – Value Stream Mapping

Maps material and information flow from raw material to customer, marking where value is added and where things wait. The waiting is the finding: in most processes the touch time is a small fraction of the lead time, and that gap is where the money sits.

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W

Work Instruction – WI

The step-level detail at the workplace itself: what to do, in what order, with which settings and what a good result looks like. Where a procedure describes a process, this describes a task. Pictures beat paragraphs, and it belongs where the work happens rather than in a binder.

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