It includes lower costs, higher returns on sales and investment, and the ability to charge higher rather than competitive prices.

It is a broad statement describing a desired future condition or achievement without being specific about how much and when.

It is a common set of values, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and accepted behaviors shared by individuals within a firm.

It is a desired result that is achieved more efficiently when activities and their related resources are managed as a course.

It is a group of individuals organized to work together to accomplish a specific objective.

It is a Japanese term that means gradual, unending improvement by doing little things better and setting and achieving increasingly higher standards.

It is a major shift in the attitudes, norms, sentiments, beliefs, values, operating principles and behavior of an organization.

It is a need or expectation, generally mandatory or compulsory.

It is a plan (direction), statement of intent or commitment for achieving an objective.

It is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (internal or external).

It is a source of materials, service or information input provided to a process.

It is a specific, definable activity to perform an assigned piece of work, often finished within a certain time.

It is a strategy and a formal relationship between a supplier and a customer that engenders cooperation for the benefit of both parties.

It is a systematic evaluation process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the current, historical or projected compliance of an organization to a standard.

It is a system of maintaining standards in manufactured products by testing a sample of the output against the specification.

It is a technique in which an organization measures its performance against that of best-in-class organizations, determines how those organizations achieved their performance levels and uses the information to improve its own performance.

It is a technique teams use to generate ideas on a particular subject.

It is a term for assets (for example, materials, supplies, work in process and finished goods) held by an organization.

It is an economic activity that creates value and provides benefits for customers at specific times.

It is an individual with responsibility and authority over seeing a process.

It is an instrument or technique to support and improve the activities of top grade management and improvement.

It is an organizational practice whereby workers regularly participate in making decisions on how their work areas operate, including suggestions for improvement, planning, goal setting and monitoring fulfillment.

It is defined as shared values and beliefs, expressed by leaders that determine and support quality.

It is referred to as a way of life as it aims to satisfy customers constantly and to create appropriate conditions for constant training and development.

It is the act of cleaning the work area.

It is the act of confirming a product or service meets the requirements for which it was intended.

It is the act of examining a process or questioning a selected sample of individuals to obtain data about a process, product or service.

It is the action of guiding a group of people or an organization, an essential part of a quality improvement effort.

It is the amount of variation that exists in the values of multiple measurements of the same characteristic or parameter.

It is the communication of information from customers or users related to a process or performance.

It is the cost incurred by actions taken to prevent a nonconformance from occurring.

It is the dissemination of data for taking a specific product from order entry through detailed scheduling to delivery.

It is the external customer to whom a product or service is ultimately delivered.

It is the ongoing process of building and sustaining relationships by assessing, anticipating, and fulfilling stated and implied needs.

It is the result of delivering a product or service that exceeds customer expectations.

It is the total period a customer must wait to receive a product after placing an order.

It means that small, increment advancement that occurs on a regular basis will eventually add up to vast enhancement to all functions.

It reduces rework nearly to zero in an achievable goal.

These are the conditions within the company infrastructure that are needed to achieve conforming products or services.

The client ultimately determines the level of quality.

These are the physical surroundings required for a business such as buildings, utilities, process equipment, transportation services and IT systems.

It is the result of an action being taken.

It is the result of uncertainty, or the chance that an event will occur.

These are expectations of how a person or persons will behave in a given situation based on established protocols, rules of conduct or accepted social practices.

These are opportunities that guests have to form an impression about a hospitality organization.

These are products, materials, services or information provided to customers from a process.

This deals more with the way that a consumer has interpreted the outcome of the product or service delivery than it does with how much they feel that the product or service has met every requirement stated.

This scheme defines how a company will achieve the creation and delivery of the product or service they provide to their customers.

When a nonconformity occurs that is systemic in nature, it is important to amend not only the immediate problem, but to find what the root cause of the problem is and rectify it.