V6 - Indicators

• Quality of a product/process/service refers to the degree to which the product/process/service is able to satisfy needs

  • stated needs

  • implied need

• Quality is the degree to which a product/process/service is conforming to its requirements.

• stated needs = declared / explicit needs

  • ones are the (objective) technical specifications

  • e.g., products’ specifications)

• implied needs = implicit / subjective needs

  • customer’s expectations

• To identify/observe needs

• To fulfill them using the appropriate resources/methods

• Indicators => Essential tools for observing / representing / measuring the evolution of the system and its context

• These tools are used to model a generic system/process and are needed for quality assessment.

• Indicators can be helpful for monitoring the degree of fulfilment of quality requirements and/or improving existing quality

• Indicators are used for any decision in which management needs to understand/represent part of reality.

• Set of tools for driving and controlling an organization, considering all different Quality aspects

  • human resources

  • know-how and technology

  • working practices, methodologies and procedures

• production, cost, time

• ROI

• stakeholder’s exigencies or expectations

• performance evaluation of the whole firm aspects

  • processes, suppliers, employees, Customer Satisfaction

• market analysis

  • shares, development opportunities

• productivity and competitor’s analysis

• decisions about product/service innovation

• Indicators are used for any decision in which management needs to understand/represent part of reality.

• Categorial

  • Nominal: labels

  • Ordinal:

• Cardinal

  • Interval

  • Ratio

  • Absolute

• Basic Relations among objects

  • gleich, ungleich

• Permissable statistics

• Scale in which numbers are assigned to objects to indicate the relative extent to which the objects possess some characteristic.

  It can be determined whether an object has more or less of a characteristic/attribute/feature than some other object, but not how much more or less.

  e.g., T-shirt sizes: XS, S, M, L, XL and so on (but the right amount is not given i.e., by how many units the T-shirt size is bigger/smaller (>, <, greater or less).

  e.g., If some objects (x1, x2, ...) are defined on an ordinal scale, then it is meaningful to say that x1>x2 (e.g., one object rated 4 is better than another one rated 3 on a five-level ordinal scale).

  Any series of numbers can be assigned to categories, so that they preserve the ordered relationships between the objects (transitivity property of inequalities has to be satisfied too). Strictly (monotonically) increasing transformations of scale are permissible.

  In addition to the counting operation allowable for nominal scale data, ordinal scales permit the use of statistics based on centiles, e.g., percentile, quartile, median.

A statement/assertion using scales is called meaningful, if its truth (or falsity) is unchanged whenever any scale is replaced by another permissible scale