CQE
Encyclopedia
Certified Quality Engineer, often abbreviated CQE, is a certification given by the American Society for Quality
. These engineers are professionally educated in quality engineering
and quality control
.
They are trained in researching and preventing unnecessary costs through lack of quality, lost production costs, lost market share
due to poor quality, etc. They possess the knowledge needed to setup quality control circles, assess potential quality risks, and evaluate human factors
and natural process variation.
A partial course syllabus
is as follows:
. Examples include:
The Certified Quality Engineer exam is administered by the ASQ twice yearly at numerous locations around the country, and to some extent internationally. The exam changes from test to test in minor detail and the body of knowledge is revised and updated by peer review committees set up by the ASQ. The test itself consists of 160 multiple choice questions that must be answered in five hours (the number of questions and the test length may vary due to the exam being changed by the ASQ).
American Society for Quality
American Society for Quality , formerly known as American Society for Quality Control , is a knowledge-based global community of quality control experts, with nearly 85,000 members dedicated to the promotion and advancement of quality tools, principles, and practices in their workplaces and in...
. These engineers are professionally educated in quality engineering
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance, or QA for short, is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production process...
and quality control
Quality control
Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...
.
They are trained in researching and preventing unnecessary costs through lack of quality, lost production costs, lost market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
due to poor quality, etc. They possess the knowledge needed to setup quality control circles, assess potential quality risks, and evaluate human factors
Human factors
Human factors science or human factors technologies is a multidisciplinary field incorporating contributions from psychology, engineering, industrial design, statistics, operations research and anthropometry...
and natural process variation.
A partial course syllabus
Syllabus
A syllabus , is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in an education or training course. It is descriptive...
is as follows:
- Management SystemManagement systemA management system is the framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives....
s - Project ManagementProject managementProject management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value...
- Quality Information Systems
- Leadership Principles and Techniques
- Training
- Cost of QualityQuality costsThe concept of quality costs is a means to quantify the total cost of quality-related efforts and deficiencies. It was first described by Armand V. Feigenbaum in a 1956 Harvard Business Review article....
- Quality Philosophies & Approaches
- History of Quality
- Total Quality ManagementTotal Quality ManagementTotal quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
- Customer Relations
- Quality Deployment
- Supplier Qualification & Certication Systems
- Quality Systems
- Documentation Systems
- Configuration ManagementConfiguration managementConfiguration management is a field of management that focuses on establishing and maintaining consistency of a system or product's performance and its functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.For information assurance, CM...
- Planning, Controlling and Assuring Product and Process Quality
- Design inputs and design review
- Validation and Qualification Methods
- Process Capability
- Interpretation of technical drawings and specifications
- Material Control
- Acceptance Sampling
- Measurement Systems
- Gage repeatability and reproducibility (Gage R & R)
- Measurement System Analysis
- Destructive and nondestructive testing and measuring
- TraceabilityTraceabilityTraceability refers to the completeness of the information about every step in a process chain.The formal definition: Traceability is the ability to chronologically interrelate uniquely identifiable entities in a way that is verifiable....
to standards - Calibration systems
- Reliability and Risk ManagementRisk managementRisk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities...
- Design of systems for reliability
- Failure Mode and Effects AnalysisFailure mode and effects analysisA failure modes and effects analysis is a procedure in product development and operations management for analysis of potential failure modes within a system for classification by the severity and likelihood of the failures...
(FMEA) - Fault tree analysisFault tree analysisFault tree analysis is a top down, deductive failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system is analyzed using boolean logic to combine a series of lower-level events...
(FTA) - Management and Planning Tools
- Corrective Action
- Preventive Action
- Overcoming Barriers to Quality Improvement
- Concepts of ProbabilityProbabilityProbability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
and StatisticsStatisticsStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.... - Drawing Valid Statistical Conclusions
- Control Charts
- Properties and application of probability distributions
- Statistical Decision Making
- Tests for meanMeanIn statistics, mean has two related meanings:* the arithmetic mean .* the expected value of a random variable, which is also called the population mean....
s, varianceVarianceIn probability theory and statistics, the variance is a measure of how far a set of numbers is spread out. It is one of several descriptors of a probability distribution, describing how far the numbers lie from the mean . In particular, the variance is one of the moments of a distribution...
s, and proportions - Design of ExperimentsDesign of experimentsIn general usage, design of experiments or experimental design is the design of any information-gathering exercises where variation is present, whether under the full control of the experimenter or not. However, in statistics, these terms are usually used for controlled experiments...
- Statistical process controlStatistical process controlStatistical process control is the application of statistical methods to the monitoring and control of a process to ensure that it operates at its full potential to produce conforming product. Under SPC, a process behaves predictably to produce as much conforming product as possible with the least...
Techniques
Some techniques that Quality Engineers use in quality engineering/assurance include:- Statistical process controlStatistical process controlStatistical process control is the application of statistical methods to the monitoring and control of a process to ensure that it operates at its full potential to produce conforming product. Under SPC, a process behaves predictably to produce as much conforming product as possible with the least...
- DemingW. Edwards DemingWilliam Edwards Deming was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is perhaps best known for his work in Japan...
's wheel - Total quality managementTotal Quality ManagementTotal quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
(TQM) - Six SigmaSix SigmaSix Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...
Applications
These techniques are applicable company/system wide and are, by definition, not only developed for manufacturing processesManufacturing Process Management
Manufacturing process management is a collection of technologies and methods used to define how products are to be manufactured. MPM differs from ERP/MRP which is used to plan the ordering of materials and other resources, set manufacturing schedules, and compile cost data.A cornerstone of MPM is...
. Examples include:
- PurchasingPurchasingPurchasing refers to a business or organization attempting for acquiring goods or services to accomplish the goals of the enterprise. Though there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations...
- SalesSalesA sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
and after sales - ManufacturingManufacturingManufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
- Customer serviceCustomer serviceCustomer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
- Human resource managementHuman resource managementHuman Resource Management is the management of an organization's employees. While human resource management is sometimes referred to as a "soft" management skill, effective practice within an organization requires a strategic focus to ensure that people resources can facilitate the achievement of...
- Research and developmentResearch and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
Professional institutes
There are professional institutes, most notably the American Society for Quality, that examine the candidates before they are awarded an official certificate. This process helps to establish and maintain a minimum body of knowledge and skill level among certified engineers.The Certified Quality Engineer exam is administered by the ASQ twice yearly at numerous locations around the country, and to some extent internationally. The exam changes from test to test in minor detail and the body of knowledge is revised and updated by peer review committees set up by the ASQ. The test itself consists of 160 multiple choice questions that must be answered in five hours (the number of questions and the test length may vary due to the exam being changed by the ASQ).