"Quality control may be defined as:"

“Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction.”

“Product quality can then be defined as: The composite product characteristics of engineering and manufacturing that determine the degree to which the product, in use, will meet the expectations of the customer.”

“Several of the quality-control methods have been carried on in industry for many years. What are new in the modern approach to quality control are integration of these often uncoordinated activities into an over-all administrative program for a factory and the addition to the time-tested methods used of a few new techniques which have been found useful in dealing with and thinking about the increased emphasis upon precision in manufactured parts.”

“The materials presented in this book have been developed in industry for use in meeting a wide variety of practical industrial problems. They have been used in several factories both as the "plan of attack" for organizing new quality-control programs and as text material for in-service training courses.”

“In the phrase "quality control" the word quality does not have the popular meaning of "best" in any absolute sense. It means "best for certain customer conditions." These conditions are the actual use and the selling price of the product. Product quality cannot be thought of apart from product cost.”

“The outstanding quality accomplishments of industry during the past decade are familiar history. Particularly during World War II, the accomplishments made by the precision equipment in our tanks and guns and planes were indelibly impressed upon the entire world. This results side of the quality picture makes impressive reading.”