- Quality management system (QMS)
- This course's working term for the way an organisation plans, checks and improves the quality of its work as one system. ISO 9001, titled "Quality management systems - Requirements", sets out what such a system must do.
- Contract quality requirements
- Under FAR 46.101, the technical quality requirements in a contract plus the clauses that prescribe inspection and other quality controls on the contractor.
- Critical, major and minor nonconformance
- FAR 46.101 classes of nonconformance by consequence: critical is likely to make the product unsafe (or to prevent a vital agency mission); major is likely to cause failure or materially reduce usability; minor has little bearing on effective use.
- First article
- Under FAR 2.101, a preproduction model, initial production sample, test sample, first lot, pilot lot or pilot models, tested for conformance before or early in production.
- Jidoka
- Toyota's "automation with a human touch": a machine stops itself when it detects an abnormality, or an operator stops the line, so defects are not passed on.
- Mistake proofing (poka-yoke)
- EPA: technology and procedures designed to prevent defects and equipment malfunction during manufacturing processes.
- Kaizen
- EPA: the incremental and continual improvement of production activities, aimed at reducing waste.
