Decisioning for Quality Assurance

Real scenario as follows:
One of the U.S. largest publishers owned no equipment and did no manufacturing.

Consequently, they had to rely on the trust of suppliers for the quality of their products.

Because the volume was significant…a defective lot was very costly from all sides.

The decision was to create a unique division [Quality Control in the publisher’s house].

The premise was simple [based on the Military Statistical Random Sampling model).

The math dictated that a totally random selection was sampled on various lot sizes.

The random sample predicted the condition of the entire lot based on the model.

The original goal was zero defects that later loosened up to 1%-2% once controlled.

The product that evolved transformed the controls, was highly efficient and created mega-cost savings.

Over the years, this initiative has been one of the strongest in terms of cost control, contract negotiation and management decisioning, that this publisher has ever attempted.

Question: Was it the initial decision or the quality assurance initiative…e.g. “the chicken or the egg” that became the hero?

ZDT Author’s Comment:
Since I was the manager involved in this initiative, please e-mail me for the details.