Quality management is a broad subject whose principles and practices are best understood when studied in the context of real-life organizations. This article describes a major quality assessment field project that serves as the integrative vehicle for an MBA curriculum. Each year the entire entering MBA class devotes a portion of 8 months to performing comprehensive quality audits of external organizations. Whereas they reinforce the principles of quality management, the field projects also require students to integrate the knowledge gained from each of their MBA courses in critically examining all operational areas of their host organizations.
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