There exists a gradual momentum towards an increasingly open, globally competitive marketplace. Quality is considered to be the key to competition. Experience shows that nine out of ten customers and industrial markets make quality equal to or more important than price in their purchasing decisions. Some of the leading companies are now building their growth around a new strategy that fits tough quality demands and thus ensures market share and profitability strength. These quality strategic objectives have not until recently been understood nor seriously accepted as either realistic or necessary by many organizations. Their quality approach may be described as a “best effort” type of quality programme. This approach, by and large, results in reacting to quality requirements rather than leading which can provide competitive advantage.
The quality programmes of today are one of the most potent change agents for companies. Quality and cost are the necessary ingredients of such programs.
Realizing the foregoing the editors have chosen an opportune time for putting this book together. This book addresses the issue of quality and optimization (minimization of quality costs) and presents a broad survey of the state of art of the optimization in quality. Literature on optimization of quality has appeared in different journals, books and other publications. By providing the pertinent literature in one book the editors have provided a ready reference to the academicians, researchers and practitioners in the field of quality control.
The book consists of five parts. The first part comprises two chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to optimization and the second chapter presents contemporary approaches to optimization models in process control. The second part has four chapters. These chapters cover economic design of control charts and related topics. The third part has three chapters and all these chapters address economic selection of parameters. Part four has four chapters. These chapters address the optimal procedure for setting and adjusting processes, shift detection, monitoring process and lot sizing. Part five has one chapter which primarily deals with acceptance sampling.
The contributors to this book have made an extra effort to ensure completeness of the relevant literature. Presentation of material is quite clear. Terminology used in the text can be easily understood by practitioners.
This book can be considered as a valuable addition to libraries. Professionals will find it to be an up‐to‐date reference book which could be of considerable assistance to academicians and graduate students working in the area of quality.
I am delighted and pleased to review this book. Incidentally, both of the editors are my former students.
