Armand V. Feigenbaum

Feigenbaum's argument that quality is built by the whole organization, not caught at the end, is why fulfillment operations measure accuracy at every step instead of relying on a final check. He set out total quality control in a book first published in 1951 and expanded as Total Quality Control in 1961, and from 1958 to 1968 he ran manufacturing operations and quality control across General Electric. He also framed the cost of quality: spending on prevention and inspection plus the losses from failures. Warehouses that track receiving errors, mispicks, and damage separately, and invest in prevention to cut returns and chargebacks, apply his thinking.

• Quality Control InspectionCheck that catches defects and wrong items
• Order AccuracyShare of orders shipped without errors
• Damage RateShare of orders that arrive damaged

• W. Edwards Deming1900–1993 · Statistician and quality management pioneer
• Joseph M. Juran1904–2008 · Quality management pioneer
• Philip B. Crosby1926–2001 · Quality expert, Zero Defects

1. College mourns Armand V. Feigenbaum '42 (Union College) union.edu
2. Armand V. Feigenbaum (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
3. Armand V. Feigenbaum, Honorary Member (ASQ) asq.org