Definitions Quality

Customer:

“Person or organization that could or does not receive a product or a service intended for or required by this person or organization” [ISO/DIS 9001, 2014, p. 17].

Quality:

ASQ [2014] defines Quality as follows: “A subjective term for which each person or sector has its own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings:

1. The characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs; 2. A product or service free of deficiencies” System: “Set of interrelated or interacting elements” [ISO 9000:2005, p.9].

Organization (Company):

“Person or group of people that has its own functions, with responsibilities, authorities and relationships to achieve its objectives” [ISO/DIS 9001, 2014, p. 12].

Interested party: “Person or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceive themselves to be affected by a decision or activity” [ISO/DIS 9001, 2014, p. 12].

Stakeholders:

“Any individual, group or organization that will have a significant impact on or will be significantly impacted by the quality of a specific product or service” [ASQ, 2014].

Complex Systems:

Complex systems are systems that consist of many interacting components and many hierarchical layers. It is common to call these systems complex because it is impossible to reduce the overall behavior of the system to a set of properties characterizing the individual components. Interaction is able to produce properties at the collective level that are simply not present when the components are considered individually [Moffat, 2003].

Complex systems adapt, self-organize and have emergent properties (Ottino, 2004). Therefore, complex systems have a “conceptual conflict with engineering, since engineering is not about letting systems be, but about making things happen.” Engineering is about convergence, optimum design and consistency. “Complexity and engineering seem at odds –complex systems are about adaptation whereas engineering is about purpose” [Ottino, p. 399, 2004].

Complex Engineered Systems (CES):

Complex Engineered Systems (CES) are complex systems that are designed in order to achieve a specific objective, but they are not primarily designed to produce predictable, stable behavior within carefully constrained situations, but rather to be capable of adaptation, change and novelty [Minai et al., 2006]. Organizations are a ubiquitous example of CES.

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