The changing role of the quality professional in support of total quality management

The new Department of Defense total-quality-management plan is described. This plan assumes that the traditional quality inspector or specialist does not have the knowledge and skills necessary to support the concept of continuous process improvement. Technical knowledge of the product becomes less important, while analytical techniques are crucial to helping production understand and improve processes. The new quality professional as defined in this plan needs to be an expert on measurement, analysis, improvement, and control of processes. In addition, he/she must become the catalyst that stimulates the teamwork critical to achieving total quality management