Constructs and Methods of Statistical Quality Control. The Role of the Italian Statistical Society

The paper briefly discusses the evolution of the concept of quality, aimed at assessing of the characteristics of the products in order to verify their compliance with product specifications. The original Statistical Quality Control (SQC) was chiefly concerned with a unique indicator, of an objective type, the fraction p of non conforming units. Now a possible unitary reference was found in customer satisfaction, which however is not objectively measurable being related to subjective, psychological evaluation. Moreover, the quality culture has been extended to classes of goods as well as of services, for which the assessment of customer satisfaction is particularly relevant, including such important services as medical care, education, transportation. The Italian Statistical Society (SIS) has been active in SQC with its Working Group on Statistics for Technology and Industry (1990 - 2002) and with the Coordination Group on Statistics for Enterprise (2003 - 2008). The main aim of the paper is to offer an outline of the contributions of Italian statisticians in the typical issue, with reference to the Proceedings of the SIS Meetings from the 1990’s onward.