
The Need for a Lean Management Standard ◾ 13
necessary to distinguish between critical to quality (CTQ) and critical to
Lean (CTL) characteristics.
Critical to Quality versus Critical to Lean
An LMS complements and is synergistic with a quality management system
(QMS), but there is also an enormous difference between them. The QMS
focuses on critical to quality (CTQ) characteristics, which are almost if not
entirely uniformly intrinsic to the product or service. In the case of physi-
cal products, these include feature dimensions, roughness, durability, hard-
ness, purity, reliability, and other characteristics that a supplier or customer
can measur ...