翻译：275641119What is Quality? David Straker 质量是什么？大卫 思切克This article first appeared Quality World, the journal of the Chartered Quality Institute此篇文章首次于特许质量协会出现质量一词The domain of the quality professional has changed. From its humble beginnings in manufacturing, it is now expected, along with other infrastructure professions, such as IT, HR and finance, to contribute at the organisational level. Unlike those other professions, quality expertise can be hard to define, perhaps because there are many views of what business-level quality means. David Straker considers current definitions of quality and offers a new one, considering its ramifications for the quality profession.质量专业领域发生了变化，从制造业的姗姗来迟开始，它现在随着 IT，人力资源和财务等其他基础专业在组织层面上有所贡献而变得有所期望了。不像这些其他职业，质量技能很难去定义，也许因为有很多业务水平所谓的质量观点。大卫 思切克考虑到当前质量的定义，并就质量职业的结果性给出了一个新的定义。At its simplest level, quality answers two questions: What is wanted? and How do we do it? Accordingly, qualitys stomping ground has always been the area of processes. From the bread and butter of ISO 9000, to the heady heights of TQM, quality professionals specify, measure, improve and re-engineer processes to ensure that people get what they want.最初，质量回答了两个问题：“我们要什么？”和“我们怎么做？”。相应地，质量的所处之地总是过程的区域。从 ISO9000 到全面质量管理，质量专家们制定，测量，提升和重组过程以确保人们所需。So where are we now?所以我们现在在何地？There are as many definitions of quality as there are quality consultants, but commonly accepted variations include: 当有质量顾问时，就有很多关于质量的定义，但是通常被接受的定义包括：conformance to requirements - Crosby 符合要求- 克劳斯比fitness for use - Juran 适合使用-朱兰the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied need - ISO 8402:1994 满足预定和潜在的需要的特性实体- ISO 8402:1994quality models for business, including the Deming Prize, the EFQM excellence model and the Baldrige award 商业的质量模范包括戴明奖，EFQM注：欧洲品质管理基金会 (European Foundation for Quality Management，EFQM)卓越奖和鲍德里奇奖国家(美国)质量奖。So what is wrong?到底怎么了？Philip Crosbys definition is easily toppled: if requirements are wrong, then failure is guaranteed. His focus is the domain of QA where, without a specification, quality cannot be measured and thus controlled. You cannot have zero defects if you do not have a standard against which to measure defectiveness. 菲利普克劳斯比的质量定义容易被推翻：如果要求本来就是错误的，那必然导致失效。他的关注点是没有规范的质量保证领域，质量是不可测量和控制。若你没有测量缺陷的标准，那你就不能保证零缺陷。This reflects the early days, where quality was clearly about product. Quality control, and later QA, was our domain - we didnt care about customers; the research and design department was responsible for designing the job and sales and marketing for selling it. But those halcyon days of definitive specifications and jobs for life are long gone. 这折射在质量是关于产品的早期时代。质量控制，之后的质量保证是我们的领域-我们不在乎客户，研发和涉及部门对质量负责，市场和销售负责营销。但是，权威性的规划书和铁饭碗的工作的平静日子一去不复返了。Though Juran takes a step further down the value chain, to the use of the product or service (at which point customers had forced their way into the frame), he still presupposes that we can fully understand how the product will be used, which is a great challenge (and not always possible) . As Deming himself said, some things are unknown and unknowable. 尽管朱兰沿着价值链把产品或服务的使用迈进了一步（在这一点上客户挤进了框架内），他任然预设我们能完全理解产品如何使用，这是一个非常大的挑战（不一定能做到）。正如戴明自己说的那样“有些事物是未知和未定的”ISO 8402 recognises this uncertainty with its implied need. It uses the word entity as opposed to the product or service definition of its earlier (1986) version, indicating a broadening uncertainty. Nonetheless, it suffers again from a simplistic, single-minded focus - all we need to do is to figure out what is wanted and then deliver it. ISO 8402 认识到质量潜在的需要的不确定性。相对于 1986 年版的产品或服务定义，它使用了实体这一词来表示一个更宽泛的不确定性。但是，它又一次遭遇单纯又诚实的关注-我们需要做的就是为了解决我们需要什么然后完成它。The quality models are a step further into broader business. Here, although processes are important, quality is much more about people: customers are there, but so too are stakeholders - employees, partners, suppliers, shareholders and society. Perhaps wisely, the models avoid nailing down a specific definition of quality, leaving us without a definition that encompasses a broader business view.质量范例迈进了更广泛的业务。这里，尽管过程是重要的，质量比人员更重要的多：客户在那，但是股东 员工，合伙人，供应商，股东和社会。也许，这些模型避免了快速做出一个具体的质量定义，留给我们的是一个没有定义的，具有更广阔的业务观点ISO9000:2000 steps in this direction also, talking about customer and other interested parties, but leaves the definition of quality at a rather generalised degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirementsISO9000:2000 也在这方向跨了一步，讨论关于客户和相关方，但是给了一个更概括的质量定义：一组固有特性满足要求的程度Initial problems最初的问题Lets face it, quality is difficult to define. We want to be precise, to create a quality definition, yet language is limited. Nor does it help that our domain has expanded from the relatively- constrained factory floor into the open realms of a broader business context, and beyond that, to environmental and social domains. 让我们面对质量很难去定义的现实。我们想更精确去创造一个质量定义，然而，语言是有限的。我们的领域从相对约束工厂现场到更广的业务环境的开放范围，再到环境和社会领域，质量之定义都是苍白无用的。The IQA dallies with all of the above definitions on its website (