In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests.
A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information, and resources needed to implement and maintain it. Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labor inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signaling of problems via a continual improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS has tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality are increasingly tied to these factors. Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide – the ISO 19011 audit regime applies to both and deals with quality and sustainability and their integration.
Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design, reliability, and maintainability expectations of that customer. The core purpose of Quality Assurance is to prevent mistakes and defects in the development and production of both manufactured products, such as automobiles and shoes, and delivered services, such as automotive repair and athletic shoe design. Assuring quality and therefore avoiding problems and delays when delivering products or services to customers is what ISO 9000 defines as that "part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled". This defect prevention aspect of quality assurance differs from the defect detection aspect of quality control and has been referred to as a shift left since it focuses on quality efforts earlier in product development and production and on avoiding defects in the first place rather than correcting them after the fact.
In systems engineering, information systems and software engineering, the systems development life cycle (SDLC), also referred to as the application development life cycle, is a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system. The SDLC concept applies to a range of hardware and software configurations, as a system can be composed of hardware only, software only, or a combination of both. There are usually six stages in this cycle: requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation.
In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes, and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
Advanced product quality planning (APQP) is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly in the automotive industry. It differs from Six Sigma in that the goal of Six Sigma is to reduce variation, but has similarities to Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).
Environmental stress screening (ESS) refers to the process of exposing a newly manufactured or repaired product or component to stresses such as thermal cycling and vibration in order to force latent defects to manifest themselves by permanent or catastrophic failure during the screening process. The surviving population, upon completion of screening, can be assumed to have a higher reliability than a similar unscreened population.
A measurement system analysis (MSA) is a thorough assessment of a measurement process, and typically includes a specially designed experiment that seeks to identify the components of variation in that measurement process. Just as processes that produce a product may vary, the process of obtaining measurements and data may also have variation and produce incorrect results. A measurement systems analysis evaluates the test method, measuring instruments, and the entire process of obtaining measurements to ensure the integrity of data used for analysis and to understand the implications of measurement error for decisions made about a product or process. Proper measurement system analysis is critical for producing a consistent product in manufacturing and when left uncontrolled can result in a drift of key parameters and unusable final products. MSA is also an important element of Six Sigma methodology and of other quality management systems. MSA analyzes the collection of equipment, operations, procedures, software and personnel that affects the assignment of a number to a measurement characteristic.
A test engineer is a professional who determines how to create a process that would best test a particular product in manufacturing and related disciplines, in order to assure that the product meets applicable specifications. Test engineers are also responsible for determining the best way a test can be performed in order to achieve adequate test coverage. Often test engineers also serve as a liaison between manufacturing, design engineering, sales engineering and marketing communities as well.
The process of establishing documentary evidence demonstrating that a procedure, process, or activity carried out in testing and then production maintains the desired level of compliance at all stages. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is very important that in addition to final testing and compliance of products, it is also assured that the process will consistently produce the expected results. The desired results are established in terms of specifications for outcome of the process. Qualification of systems and equipment is therefore a part of the process of validation. Validation is a requirement of food, drug and pharmaceutical regulating agencies such as the US FDA and their good manufacturing practices guidelines. Since a wide variety of procedures, processes, and activities need to be validated, the field of validation is divided into a number of subsections including the following:
An engineering change order (ECO), also called an engineering change notice (ECN), engineering change (EC), or engineering release notice(ERN), is an artifact used to implement changes to components or end products. The ECO is utilized to control and coordinate changes to product designs that evolve over time.
IATF 16949:2016 is a technical specification aimed at the development of a quality management system which provides for continual improvement, emphasizing defect prevention and the reduction of variation and waste in the automotive industry supply chain and assembly process. It is based on the ISO 9001 standard and the first edition was published in June 1999 as ISO/TS 16949:1999. IATF 16949:2016 replaced ISO/TS 16949 in October 2016.
Engineer to order is a production approach characterized by:
- Engineering activities need to be added to product lead time.
- Upon receipt of a customer order, the order engineering requirements and specifications are not known in detail. There is a substantial amount of design and engineering analysis required.
Submittals in construction management can include: shop drawings, material data, samples, and product data. Submittals are required primarily for the architect and engineer to verify that the correct products will be installed on the project.
A shop drawing is a drawing or set of drawings produced by the contractor, supplier, manufacturer, subcontractor, consultants, or fabricator. Shop drawings are typically required for prefabricated components. Examples of these include: elevators, structural steel, trusses, pre-cast concrete, windows, appliances, cabinets, air handling units, and millwork. Also critical are the installation and coordination shop drawings of the MEP trades such as sheet metal ductwork, piping, plumbing, fire protection, and electrical. Shop drawings are produced by contractors and suppliers under their contract with the owner. The shop drawing is the manufacturer’s or the contractor’s drawn version of information shown in the construction documents. The shop drawing normally shows more detail than the construction documents. It is drawn to explain the fabrication and/or installation of the items to the manufacturer’s production crew or contractor's installation crews. The style of the shop drawing is usually very different from that of the architect’s drawing. The shop drawing’s primary emphasis is on the particular product or installation and excludes notation concerning other products and installations, unless integration with the subject product is necessary.
A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.
The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) is a not-for-profit association founded in 1982 and based in Southfield, Michigan. It was originally created to develop recommendations and a framework for the improvement of quality in the North American automotive industry. The association's areas of interest have expanded to include product quality standards, bar code and RFID standards, materials management, EDI, returnable containers and packaging systems, and regulatory and customs issues.
A First Article Inspection (FAI) is a production validation process for verifying that a new or modified production process produces conforming parts that meet the manufacturing specification detailed in technical or engineering drawings. Typically, a supplier performs the FAI and the purchaser reviews the report. The FAI process usually consists of fully testing and inspecting either the first part produced by the new process or a sample from the first batch of parts. First article inspection is typically a purchase order requirement of the purchaser for the supplier to complete. If the manufacturer doesn't have the in-house capability or if the purchaser requests, the first article inspection may be conducted by an approved subcontract supplier such as a dimensional inspection/metrology laboratory.
Package testing or packaging testing involves the measurement of a characteristic or property involved with packaging. This includes packaging materials, packaging components, primary packages, shipping containers, and unit loads, as well as the associated processes.
