A. Definition of Quality & Inspection
(Reference: Quality Inspection Task in Modern Manufacturing, by J.A.Pesante-Santana, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, and Jeffrey C.Woldstad, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. January 2000 of “International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors”, ed. Waldemar Karwowski (London & New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001; Second edition, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2006), pp. 2260–2263. Copyright © 2001, 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.)
1. Quality is usually defined as fitness for use, or the extent to which a product meets the consumer requirements.
2. Inspection is the act of measuring or examining carefully the quality of a product.
3. Sensory inspections and physical inspections are the main types of quality inspections.
a. Sensory inspections performed by means of the human senses to assess a product’s qualitative characteristics.
b. Physical inspections performed by means of measuring devices to assess a product’s quantitative characteristics.
4. The quality inspection has been described as consisting of the following subtasks:
a. Orient the item
b. Search the item
c. Detect any defect
d. Recognize / classify the defect
e. Decide the status of the item
f. Dispatch the item
g. Record the information about the item
5. Thus, the simplest description of the quality inspection task is to search, recognize a defect and make a decision on the part’s acceptability within the quality limits.