Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management, Twelfth Edition

The Role of Inspection

To make sure a system is producing as expected, control of the process is needed. The best processes have little variation from the standard expected. In fact, if variation were completely eliminated, there would be no need for inspection because there would be no defects. The operations manager’s challenge is to build such systems. However, inspection must often be performed to ensure that processes are performing to standard. This inspection can involve measurement, tasting, touching, weighing, or testing of the product (sometimes even destroying it when doing so). Its goal is to detect a bad process immediately. Inspection does not correct deficiencies in the system or defects in the products, nor does it change a product ...