Quality Assurance Software for Personal Computer

Abstract

Demonstration Project 89 on Quality Management was created to provide guidance on the use of practical and effective procedures to assure that the level of quality designed into the plans and specifications is actually achieved in the constructed product. One part of this effort is the distribution of a software package consisting of several interactive programs developed for use on the personal computer. These extremely user-friendly programs make it possible to analyze both pass/fail and pay adjustment acceptance procedures, construct operating characteristic curves, plot control charts, experiment with computer simulation, perform statistical comparisons of data sets, demonstrate the unreliability of decisions based on a single test result, and explore the effectiveness of stratified random sampling. This comprehensive software package provides highway engineers with the necessary tools to learn why some statistical procedures are inherently superior to others and how to incorporate this knowledge into fair and effective construction specifications.

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References

Innovation—A Strategy for Research, Development, and Technology Transfer. Final Draft. AASHTO, Washington, D.C. Aug. 1989.

National Quality Initiative Long-Range Plan. FHWA, Department of Transportation, Washington, June 1994.

Demonstration Project 89, Quality Management. FHWA, Demonstration Projects Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1990.

Weed

R. M.

Quality Assurance Software for the Personal Computer: User's Manual. Demonstration Project 89. FHWA, Demonstration Projects Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1996.

Weed

R. M.

OCPLOT: PC Program to Generate Operating Characteristic Curves for Statistical Construction Specifications. In Transportation Research Record 1491, TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 1995, pp. 18–26.