Quality assurance - An essential part of the Western electric manufacturing process

THE Bell Telephone Laboratories and the Western Electric Company (WE) pioneered the development and use of statistical methods for controlling product quality during the manufacturing process. It was not until the war years that this tool, statistical quality control, received widespread attention throughout industry. During the many years that WE has used statistical quality-control procedures in its manufacturing processes, it has, at the same time, been making an audit, which in reality is a statistical evaluation of the quality of the completed telephone product being shipped from its manufacturing plants. This audit is termed "quality assurance" in WE.