A Quality Assurance System in a Pervasive Computing Environment

As the competition for products and services continues to grow, with customer satisfaction playing an integral part in this process, organizations are faced with the task of ensuring quality in all of their activities. Since many organizations do not necessarily produce the entire product or deliver the service by themselves, they are dependent on other vital sources, for example, suppliers, that impact quality of the finished product/service. This necessitates development and implementation of a quality management system which can integrate information from the various entities to facilitate decision making in a timely manner. Additionally, it is desirable for such a quality management system to be responsive to the existing quality environment at the various sources that contribute to the manufacture of the product or delivery of the service. This chapter provides a foundation for accomplishing such quality management objectives.