A Quality and Reliability Institute for Small and Medium Industry

摘要

Several years ago, in these same pages, I published a paper titled "GI Bill for Industries," where I argued that small-and-medium sized organizations have difficulties undertaking activities such as research and development, that help them survive and grow. I offered a solution similar in spirit to the GI Bill of WWII: providing vouchers to be redeemed at universities in exchange for free research, development, and training. Today, I would like to revisit this issue in a more specific way: by proposing to establish "institutes" for Quality and Reliability (Q&R) at our research universities. Quality and reliability are two key attributes in manufacturing and service industries that are relatively expensive to implement, because they are specialized functions. Q&R are also difficult to measure and "visualize," and thus compete in disadvantage with other, more readily visible activities.