Juran's Quality Handbook by Defeo (7th edition)

• Acceptance test. A highly structured form of testing a completed, integrated system to assess compliance with specifications; commonly applied to complex systems, such as computer systems.
• Accuracy of a sensor. The degree to which a sensor tells the truth—the extent to which its evaluation of some phenomenon agrees with the "true" value as judged by an established standard.
• Activities. The steps in a process or subprocess.
• Administrator. An overseer or entity that is created and given powers to establish standards and to see that they are enforced.
• Advertising. The process of publicizing a product or service to generate sales; requires technological and legal review of copy; activities to propagandize product safety through education and warnings.
• Affinity diagram. A diagram that clusters together items of a similar type; a prelude to a cause-effect diagram used in quality improvement, and used in quality design to group together similar needs or features.
• Annual goals. What an organization seeks to achieve over a one- (to several-) year period; the aim or end to which work effort is directed.
• Arbitration. Adversarial process in which parties agree to be bound by the decision of a third party. It is an attractive form of resolving differences because it avoids the high cost and long delays inherent in most lawsuits.
• Assembly tree. A process that incorporates the outputs of several subprocesses.
• Autonomous process. A group of related activities that usually performed by one department or a single group of individuals.
• Availability. In the context of product design, the probability that a product, when used under given conditions, will perform satisfactorily when called upon.
• Avoidance of unnecessary constraints. Not overspecifying the product for the team.
• Basis for establishing quality goals. In addition to the scope of the project, a goal statement must include the goal(s) of the project. An important consideration in establishing quality goals is the choice of the basis for which the goals are set.
• Benchmarking. A recent label for the concept of setting goals based on knowing what has been achieved by others. It identifies the best in class and the methods behind it that make it best.
• Bias. The presence or influence of any factor that causes the population or process being sampled to appear different from what it actually is.
• Black belts. On-site implementation experts with the ability to develop, coach, and lead cross-functional process improvement teams.
• Breakthrough. The organized creation of beneficial change and the attainment of unprecedented levels of performance.
• Business process adaptability. The ability of a process to readily accommodate changes in both the requirements and the environment while maintaining its effectiveness and efficiency over time.
• Business process management (BPM). A process to sustain the changes made from a portfolio of improvement projects.
• Business process outsourcing (BPO). The growing practice of one organization outsourcing some number of its processes to a third party to execute the selected processes.
• Capability maturity model integration. A process improvement methodology that enables organizations to better manage their processes across business units and projects, resulting in improved organization performance.
• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). A nonprofit organization with the mission to provide information to investors and stakeholders regarding the opportunities and risks to commercial operations presented by climate change.
• Carryover analyses. Typically, a matrix-based assessment of a design that depicts the degree of carryover of design elements from a prior version, with particular regard to failure proneness.
• Cause. A proven reason for the existence of a defect. Often there are multiple causes, in which case they typically follow the Pareto principle—the vital few causes will dominate all the rest.
• Change agent. The individual or group with responsibility for leading and implementing an organizational change; anyone within the organization, at whatever level, who has the desire and accepts the responsibility for initiating or leading the change effort.
• Company-financed. Paid for by a company. In the context of testing, in this form, industrial organizations buy test services from independent test laboratories to secure the mark (certificate, seal, label) of the laboratory for their product(s).
• Comparative performance. How the final product will perform vis-à-vis the competition.
• Competitive analysis. Feature-by-feature comparison with competitors’ products; usually a matrix depicting a feature-by-feature comparison to the competition, with particular regard to best-in-class targets.
• Conceptual learning. The process of acquiring a better understanding of the cause-effect relationship, leading to "know-why."
• Consortium. An association of business organizations. This form involves creating an association of organizations from various countries. The consortium usually is dedicated to a specific project.
• Consumer-financed. Paid for by consumers. In the context of testing, in this form the test laboratory derives its income by publishing its test results, usually in a monthly journal plus an annual summary.
• Consumerism. A popular name for the movement to help consumers solve their problems through collective action; an aspect of quality beyond mere technical specifications in which the expectations of the public are included.
• Control. A universal managerial process to ensure that all key operational processes are stable over time, and to prevent adverse change to ensure planned performance targets are met.
• Control chart. A graphical tool used to determine if a process is in a state of (usually statistical) control over time. Most popular are Shewhart statistical process control charts.
• Control station. An area in which quality control takes place. In lower levels of organization, it is usually confined to a limited physical area.
• Correlation. Statistically, any departure of two or more random variables from independence. For example, data on frequency of symptoms are plotted against data on the suspected cause to show a relationship.
• Cost of poor quality (COPQ). The costs that would disappear in the organization if all failures were removed from a product, service, or process; typically measures of a percent of sales or total costs.
• Costs. The total amount of money spent by an organization to meet customer needs. With respect to quality, costs include the expenditure to design and ensure delivery of high-quality goods and services, plus the costs or losses resulting from poor quality.
• Council. An executive group formed to oversee and coordinate all strategic activities aimed at achieving the strategic plan, which is responsible for executing the strategic business plan and monitoring the key performance indicators.
• Critical factors. Those aspects that present serious danger to human life, health, and the environment, or risk the loss of very large sums of money.
• Criticality analysis. Means of identifying the "vital few" features that are vulnerable in the design so that they can receive priority for attention and resources; usually a matrix that depicts the degree of failure of a feature or component against the ranking of customer needs, along with responsibilities detailed for correction.
• Cultural needs. The portion of customer needs, especially of internal customers, beyond products and processes that are instead related to preservation of status, job security, self-respect, respect of others, continuity of habit patterns, and still other elements of what is broadly called the cultural pattern. These seldom are stated openly.
• Customer. Organization or person that receives a product. A customer can be internal or external.
• Customer disloyalty. The negative state of a customer who no longer wants the producer’s products or services. They find better-performing products and services and then become unfaithful to the producer to whom they had been previously loyal.
• Customer dissatisfaction. Customer’s negative perception of the degree to which the customer’s requirements have been fulfilled.
• Customer loyalty. The delighted state of a customer when the features of the good or service meet his or her needs and are delivered free from failure.
• Customer needs spreadsheet. A spreadsheet tool depicting the relationship between customer communities and the statements of need. Needs strongly relating to a wide customer base subsequently rise in priority when features are considered. Advanced forms of this spreadsheet and others appear as the "house of quality," or quality function deployment (QFD).
• Customer reaction. How customers will rate the product compared with others available.
• Customer satisfaction. Customer’s positive perception of the degree to which the customer’s requirements have been fulfilled.
• Customer service. Activities related to enhancing the customer experience, including such pursuits as observation of use of the product to discover the hazards inherent during use (and misuse); feeding the information back to all concerned; providing training and warnings to users.
• Customs or traditions. Elements of culture that provide the precedents and premises that are guides to decisions and actions.
• Cycle time. The time required to carry out processes, especially those that involve many steps performed sequentially in various departments.
• Defect. Any state of unfitness for use or nonconformance to specification.
• Deployment. In the context of strategy, the means of subdividing the goals and allocating the subgoals to lower levels.
• Design for maintainability. Evaluation of particular designs for the ease and cost of maintaining them during their useful life.
• Design for manufacture and assembly. Evaluation of the complexity and potential for problems during manufacture with a view to make assembly as simple and error-free as possible.
• Design for quality. A structured process for developing products (both goods and services) that ensures that customer needs are met by the final output.
• Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). A methodology to create both a design for a product and the process to produce it in such a way that defects in the product and the process are not only extremely rare, but also predictable.
• Design network. A tree diagram depicting the events that occur either in parallel or sequentially when designing. Usually shown with the total time needed to complete the event, along with earliest start and subsequent stop dates, a design network is used to manage a particularly complex design effort.
• Diagnosis. The process of studying symptoms, theorizing as to causes, testing theories (hypotheses), and discovering causes.
• Diagnostic journey. From symptoms to theories about what may cause the symptom(s); from theories to testing of the theories; from tests to establishing root cause(s).
• Documentation. Recording of information, especially to meet regulatory requirements. For example, the growth of safety legislation and of product liability has enormously increased the need for documentation.
• Dominant cause. A major contributor to the existence of defects, and one that must be remedied before there can be an adequate performance breakthrough.
• Dry run. A walk-through of the new process, with the planning team playing a dominant operating role in the process; a test of a process under operating conditions, in which effects of failure are mitigated (e.g., product is not delivered to a customer).
• Ecoquality. The concept and associated activities intended to enable clients across industries to respond to demands from customers, regulatory agencies, and shareholders for accountability in producing products and services fit for ecological use, focusing on understanding carbon profiles and reducing them to appropriate levels.
• Employee engagement. The levels of connection employees feel with their employer, as demonstrated by their willingness and ability to help their organization succeed, largely by providing discretionary effort on a sustained basis.
• Empowerment. The process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.
• Entropy. The tendency of all living things and all organizations to head toward their own extinction.
• Equipment and supplies. Physical devices and other hard goods needed to perform the process.
• Estimation. The process of analyzing a sample result to approximate the corresponding value of the population parameter.
• External customers. People external to the company, organization, system, or agency who are affected by the use of the product or service. They receive value from the product of the organization. This is in contrast to internal customers, who are users within the organization.
• Failure. Any fault, defect, or error that impairs a service or product from meeting the customer needs.
• Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). A methodical approach to risk analysis that calculates the combined impact of the probability of a particular failure, the effects of that failure, and the probability that the failure can be detected and corrected, thereby establishing a priority ranking for designing in failure prevention countermeasures.
• Fault tree analysis. An aid in the design of preventive countermeasures that traces all possible combinations of causes that could lead to a particular failure.
• Feature. A property or characteristic possessed by a good or service that responds to customer needs.
• Financial control. Process consists of evaluating actual financial performance, comparing this with the financial goals, and taking action on the difference—the accountant’s "variance."
• Financial improvement. This process aims to improve financial results. It takes many forms: cost reduction projects, new facilities, and new product development to increase sales, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and so on.
• Financial planning. Process that prepares the annual financial and operational budgets. It defines the deeds to be done in the year ahead; it translates those deeds into money—revenue, costs, and profits; and it determines the financial benefits of doing all those deeds.
• Flow diagram. A popular depiction of a process, using standard symbols for activities and flow direction. It originated in software design during the 1950s and evolved into the process mapping widely used today.
• Focus group. The popular technique of placing customers in a setting led by a trained facilitator to probe for the understanding of customer needs.
• Glossary. The chief weapon used to remove the ambiguity of words and terms between parties, especially customers and providers. A working dictionary of in-context usage, such as, What does "comfortable" mean for an office chair?
• Goal statement. In the context of a project, the written charter for the team that describes the intent and purpose of the project. It should incorporate the specific goal(s) of the project.
• Handoff. A transfer of material or information from one person or entity to another, especially across departmental boundaries.
• Hidden customers. An assortment of different customers who are easily overlooked because they may not come to mind readily. They can exert great influence over the product design.
• Homogeneity. Uniformity that implies defects are spread throughout a production unit. Unlike an assembled product, a defective part cannot simply be removed and replaced.
• Human resources function (HR function or subfunction). In the context of quality, within an organization, bears the responsibility for implementing quality and performance excellence training and development strategy.
• Inherent performance. How the final product will perform on one or more dimensions.
• Innovation. A new way of doing something; incremental, radical, and revolutionary change of producing new products and services, or improving processes and systems.
• Internal customers. Customers inside the producing organization. Everyone inside the organization plays three roles: supplier, processor, and customer.
• Inventory. Raw materials, work in progress, finished goods, papers, electronic files, etc.
• Key control characteristic. A process parameter for which variation must be controlled around some target value during manufacturing and assembly; inputs that affect outputs.
• Language. Verbal means of communication. Many countries harbor multiple languages and numerous dialects that can be a serious barrier to communication.
• Lean. The process of optimizing systems to reduce costs and improve efficiency by eliminating product and process waste; also the state of a system after such optimization.
• Linearity. In the context of measurement system analysis, the difference in bias values at different points along the expected operating range of a measurement instrument.
• Managing for quality. A set of universal methods that an enterprise, a business, an agency, a university, a hospital, or any organization can use to attain superior results by ensuring that all goods, services, and processes meet stakeholder needs.
• Mandated government certification. Under this concept, products are required by law to be independently approved for adequacy before they may be sold to the public.
• Market as a basis. Meeting or exceeding market quality as a means to establish quality goals that affect product salability.
• Market experiments. Introducing and testing ideas for features in the market that allow one to analyze and evaluate concepts.
• Market leadership. The result of entering a new market first and gaining superiority that marketers call a franchise.
• Market research. Any of a variety of techniques aimed at answering the three fundamental questions: (1) What is important to the users? (2) What is the order of the importance? (3) How well do we do in meeting them in that order as compared to the competition?
• Marketing. The process of promotion, including activities to provide product labeling for warnings, dangers, antidotes; training of the field force in the contract provisions; supplying of safety information to distributors and dealers; setup of exhibits on safety procedures; conducting of tests after installation and training of users in safety; publication of a list of dos and don’ts relative to safety; establishment of a customer relations climate that minimizes animosity and claims.
• Materials. Tangible elements, data, facts, figures, or information (these, along with equipment and supplies, also may make up inputs required as well as what is to be done to them).
• Mean. The average value of a list of numbers.
• Mean time between failures (MTBF). The mean (or average) time between successive failures of a product.
• Median. The middle value in a sequential list of numbers.
• Mediation. Adversarial process in which a third party—the mediator—helps contestants work out a settlement.
• Merchants. People who purchase products for resale, wholesalers, distributors, travel agents and brokers, and anyone who handles the product.
• Method. The orderly arrangement of a series of tasks, activities, or procedures.
• Mission statement. A short, memorable description of an organization’s reason for existence; definition of the company’s business, its objectives, and its approach to reach those objectives.
• Mistake proofing. A proactive approach to reducing defects by eliminating the opportunity to create a defect by designing and implementing creative devices and procedures.
• Mode. The value that occurs most often in a list of numbers.
• Modular test. A test of individual segments of the process.
• Needs analysis spreadsheet. Tool used to record the breakdown of primary needs into precise and measurable terms.
• Ombudsman. A Swedish word used to designate an official whose job it is to receive citizens’ complaints and to help them secure action from the government bureaucracy.
• On-stream time (OST). The actual run time divided by available time for process equipment associated with the process; may best be set in the high 80 to 90 percentile for many processes.
• Operational learning. The process of obtaining validation of action-outcome links, leading to "know-how."
• Organization. Group of people and facilities with an arrangement of responsibilities, authorities, and relationships.
• Perceived needs. Apparent, supposed, and potentially superficial needs expressed by customers based on their perceptions. These may differ entirely from the supplier’s perceptions of what constitutes product quality.
• Performance. Measure of whether the product does what it is supposed to in terms of the principal operating characteristics. This dimension is based on measurable attributes and superiority.
• Performance excellence. The state achieved by an organization that is pursuing superior results with a set of universal methods aimed at improving the quality of its goods, services, processes, people, and financial performance.
• Performance failure. How the product will perform with respect to product failure.
• Performance management. A systematic, data-oriented approach to managing people at work that relies on positive reinforcement as the primary means to maximize performance.
• Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA). A rapid-cycle change and control tool used to solve sporadic, day-to-day problems.
• Planning network. It is used to manage a particularly complex planning effort.
• Policies. A guide to managerial action. There may be policies in a number of areas such as quality, environment, safety, and human resources.
• Potential customers. Those not currently using the product or service but capable of becoming customers.
• PRE-Control. A statistical technique for detecting process conditions and changes that may cause defects (rather than changes that are statistically significant).
• Precision of a sensor. A measure of the ability of a sensor to reproduce its results over and over on repeated tests.
• Procedure. Specified way to carry out an activity or a process.
• Process. Set of interrelated resources and activities that transform inputs into outputs.
• Process analysis. A process flowchart technique that also shows the time necessary to do each task, the dependencies the task requires (such as access to a computer network), and the time "wasted" in between tasks. Usually it is interview-driven and requires a skilled process expert.
• Process anatomy. A coherent structure that binds or holds the process together. This structure supports the creation of the goods or the delivery of the service.
• Process capability. A method used to discover whether a process is consistently capable of meeting desired goals.
• Process control. An ongoing managerial process in which the actual performance of the operating process is evaluated by measurements taken at the control points, comparing the measurements to the quality targets, and taking action on the difference.
• Process feature. Any property, attribute, and so on needed to create the goods or deliver the service and achieve the product feature goals that will satisfy a customer need.
• Process goal. The numeric target for a process.
• Processor. Employees, departments, functions, business units, agencies that produce or carry out a process within the organization; also organizations and people who use the product or output as an input for producing their own product.
• Product. Result of a process.
• Product design. A creative process based largely on technological or functional expertise.
• Product design spreadsheet. A method used to record and analyze product features and goals needed to meet customers’ needs.
• Product improvement. A common form of competition in quality through improving products so that they have greater appeal to the users and therefore can be sold successfully in the face of competition from existing products.
• Product remediation. Situation in which final product made suffers from variation in quality among batches and the situation needs to be managed.
• Productivity. An output performance index, such as units produced per person/hour.
• Project goals. Specific objectives of a project; these should be measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
• Psychological needs. For many products or services, customer needs that extend beyond the technological features of the good or service. The needs also include matters of a psychological nature.
• Purchaser. Someone who buys the product for himself or herself or for someone else.
• Quality. Degree to which an inherent characteristic fulfills requirements.
• Quality control. A universal managerial process for conducting operations so as to provide stability over time, and to prevent adverse change and to maintain the status quo. Quality control takes place by use of the feedback loop. Quality control entails the maintenance or restoration of the operating status quo as measured by (meeting) the acceptable level of defects and provision of customer needs.
• Quality function deployment. A valuable tool for collecting and organizing the required information needed to complete the operational quality planning process.
• Quality management. All activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives, and responsibilities and implement them by such means as quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement within the quality system.
• Quality superiority. Exceptionally high quality, defined only in terms of the organization’s internal standards. It must be clearly based on the customer needs and the benefits the customer is seeking.
• Quality system. Organizational structure, procedures, processes, and resources needed to implement quality management.
• Quality warranties. Assurances that stimulate producers to give priority to quality and stimulate sellers to seek out reliable sources of supply.
• Range. The difference between the maximum and minimum values in a list of numbers.
• Ranking. For defects, position in the order of frequency.
• Rapid improvement events (RIEs). Focused efforts that are facilitated and conducted by Lean experts or Black Belts to enable Lean teams to analyze the value streams and quickly develop and implement solutions in a short time.
• Recognition. Ceremonial actions taken to publicize meritorious performance, typically nonfinancial in nature.
• Redundancy. The existence of more than one element for accomplishing a given task, where all elements must fail before there is an overall failure of the system.
• Reliability. The ability of a product to perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated time; or more simply, the chance that a product will work for the required time. In the context of Lean, the ability to supply a product or service on or before the date promised.
• Remedial journey. From root causes to remedial changes in the process to remove or go around the cause(s); from remedies to testing and proving the remedies under operating conditions; from workable remedies to dealing with resistance to change; from dealing with resistance to establishing new controls to hold the gains.
• Remedial proposals. Plans to eliminate the causes of consumer problems at their source.
• Remedy. A change that can eliminate or neutralize a cause of defects.
• Repeatability. The variation in measurements obtained with one measurement instrument when used several times by an appraiser while measuring the identical characteristic on the same part.
• Replenishment time. The time from placement of an order with the supplier until the order is received and can be used by the producer.
• Reproducibility. The variation in the average of the measurements made by different appraisers using the same measuring instrument when measuring the identical characteristic on the same part.
• Return on investment (ROI). The ratio of the estimated gain to the estimated resources needed.
• Revenue. Gross receipts, whether from sales, budget appropriations, tuition, or government agency grants.
• Review process. An examination of gaps between what has been achieved and the target, and between measurement of the current state and the target it is seeking. This increases the probability of reaching goals.
• Rewards. Salaries, salary increases, bonuses, promotions, and so on often resulting from the annual review of employee performance. In the past this review has focused on meeting goals from traditional parameters: costs, productivity, schedule, and now breakthrough.
• Root cause analysis (RCA). Compared to Plan-Do-Study-Act, a more in-depth analysis that identifies true root causes of events (a special cause may itself be a root cause, but is more readily pinpointed).
• Salability analysis. A matrix tool used to depict the price willing to be borne, or the cost needed to deliver, a given feature of a product. It evaluates which features stimulate customers to be willing to buy the product and the price they are willing to pay.
• Scatter diagram. The graphical technique of plotting one continuous variable against another, to determine correlation. This is a prelude to regression analyses to determine prediction equations.
• Scorecards and key performance indicators. Measurements that are visible throughout the organization and are used to evaluate the degree to which a strategic plan is being achieved.
• Selection matrix. A matrix tool showing the choices to be made, ranked according to agreed upon criteria. It is used in both improvement and design settings.
• Self-inspection. A state in which decisions on the product are delegated to the workforce.
• Sensor. A specialized detecting device or measurement tool designed to recognize the presence and intensity of certain phenomena and to convert this sense knowledge into information.
• Simulation. A design and analysis technique that manipulates and observes a mathematical or physical model representing a real-world process, for which direct experiments may not be possible.
• Six Sigma. A quality program that ultimately improves customers’ experiences, lowers producers’ costs, and builds better leaders.
• Six Sigma DMAIC. A process that defines, measures, analyzes, improves, and controls existing processes that fall below the Six Sigma specification of only 3.4 defects per million opportunities over the long term.
• Sporadic spike. A sudden, unplanned increase in waste arising from one or more unexpected sources.
• Stability. In the context of measurement system analysis, the total variation in the measurements obtained with a measurement system on the same master or parts when measuring a single characteristic over an extended time.
• Standard deviation. The square root of the variance.
• Standard of performance. An established, aimed-at target toward which work is expended.
• Statistical inference. The process of estimating, through sampling and application of statistical methods, certain characteristics of a population. In the world of quality, these estimates and statistical conclusions are used to draw practical conclusions, typically giving the practitioner confidence in taking subsequent action (or inaction) to improve a process.
• Statistical quality control. Statistics-based methodologies including acceptance sampling and control charting, frequently employed to yield freedom from biases.
• Statute. The enabling act that defines the purpose of a regulation and especially the subject matter to be regulated. It establishes the "rules of the game" and creates an agency to administer the act.
• Steering team. Also called quality council or quality committee. This team plays the central role in directing and coordinating the organization’s efforts to manage for quality.
• Strategic deployment process. Procedures to carry out a strategy. It requires that the organization incorporate customer focus into the organization’s vision, mission, values, policies, strategies, and long- and short-term goals and projects.
• Strategic planning. The systematic approach to defining long-term business goals and planning the means to achieve them.
• Strategy. A defined plan, idea, or course of action regarding how an organization can outperform competitors or achieve similar objectives.
• Stratification. The separation of data into categories, usually as part of diagnosing a quality problem to identify causes of defects.
• Subprocesses. Smaller units obtained by the decomposition of larger processes for both the development and operation of the process.
• Supplier. A person or organization that provides a product to the customer. A supplier can be internal or external.
• Support processes. Secretarial support, outsources of printing services, copying services, temporary help, and so on.
• Survey. The passive technique of eliciting answers to preset questions about satisfaction or needs.
• Suspicions. Prior history of hostilities resulting from ancient wars, religious differences, membership in different clans, and so on.
• Symptom. The outward evidence of a defect, or that something is wrong. A defect may have multiple symptoms.
• Technology as a basis. A traditional approach in many organizations to establish the quality goals on a technological basis.
• Technology transfer. Conveyance of know-how (such as a method or invention). This is carried out in numerous ways: international professional societies and their committees; conferences; exchange visits; training courses and seminars; and university technology transfer offices.
• Theory or hypothesis. In the context of quality, unproved assertions as to reasons for the existence of defects and symptoms. Usually, multiple theories are advanced to explain the presence of defects.
• Total productive maintenance (TPM). An approach to maintenance in which equipment operators perform much of the routine maintenance, often on a continuous basis. TPM identifies the sources of losses and drives toward elimination of all of them; it focuses on zero losses.
• Training. Transfer of skills and knowledge required to complete a process.
• Transport. Moving of people or goods around or between sites.
• Tree diagram. Any of a variety of diagrams depicting events that are completed in parallel or simultaneously as branches of a tree. It is less refined than the design network, but useful to understand the activities from a "big picture" perspective.
• Understanding gap. The lack of understanding of customer needs.
• Unit of measurement. A defined amount of some quality feature, permitting evaluation of that feature in numbers, e.g., hours of time to provide service, kilowatts of electric power, or concentration of a medication.
• Upper managers. The highest leadership posts of an enterprise. Applied to a corporation, upper management includes the president (chief executive officer) plus the corporate vice presidents; applied to an autonomous division, upper management includes the general manager and the directly subordinate managers.
• User-friendly needs. Needs that, when gratified, enable amateurs to use technological and other complex product or services with confidence and ease.
• Value analysis. Calculation of both the incremental cost of specific features of the product and the cost of meeting specific customer needs and subsequent comparison of the costs of alternative designs.
• Variance. The average squared deviation of each data point from the mean.
• Vision statement (vision). A desired future state of the organization or enterprise. It should define the benefits that a customer, an employee, a shareholder, or society at large can expect from the organization.
• Voice of market. Who are or will be the customers or target audience for a product, and what share of the market or market niche it will capture.