Relevance of Quality Assurance (QA) systems to civil and environmental engineering. Need, Benefits, Common standards.

Quality engineering is supposed to be responsible for determining and planning the work of the rest of the department. Quality engineers should collaborate with design engineering concerning a new product's performance characteristics and meet with manufacturing engineers concerning the way the product will be manufactured. In that way quality engineers can determine how the product should be inspected, tested, and controlled during its life both in and outside the company. Detailing these requirements, training people …

…They act as the conscience of the operation, and the real strength and value of quality engineering involves finally learning from the past to make a smoother future. References Crosby, P., Quality is Free, McGraw-Hill Book Co., NY, NY, 1979. Juran, J. M., Gryna, F. M., editors, Quality Control Handbook, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY, 1988 (original copyright 1951). Logothetis, N, Managing For Total Quality: from Deming to Taguchi and SPC, Prentice Hall Inc., Hertfordshire, UK, 1992.