Defect
A case or incident where a product or
service fails to meet customer
requirements or specification requirements.
Defects, if found during initial phases of
a process, are less expensive to fix. If found
during a quality inspection, become
a little more expensive, and if found by a customer, may have an enormous
negative outcome due to expense to fix and may have an everlasting poor
customer opinions of the product or services.
Commonly
confused with defective.
For six
sigma, make sure that defects cannot occur in a process by using a
well thought out process design, DFSS,
(design for six sigma), and monitor the process by using statistical
process control.
If a process is the cause,
one should utilize a process
improvement program that may include the use of a cause and effect
diagram, also called a "Fishbone
Diagram" or "Ishikawa Diagram".
For more information see control
charts, control plans, an overview
of SPC,
(statistical process control), information on X-Bar
and Range charts, DPO, (Defects
per Opportunity), LTPD,
(Lot tolerance percent defective), and proportion
defective.
