Quality and Operations Management Revised Edition

The language of quality

Quality is not new. The Ancient Greeks used the word ‘areté’ meaning ‘excellence’ to define what they most admired physically and mentally in a man. Quality gradually became associated not just with human appearance and behaviour but also with the things they made. Craftsmen in the Renaissance used the word in their business to describe their highly finished and intricate jewellery, pottery, furniture silverware etc… Now the word seems to be applied to virtually everything. Footballers score quality goals, we give our children quality time, we complain about the quality of television and the weather, we talk about quality ...