Fill in the missing letters

Now divide the w ords in each box into three groups, based on their meaning.

First-rate High,top Outstanding	Low poor inferior	Uneven,variable	quality
Asses, evaluate, measure, test	Demand, insist on	Keep up, maintain, preserve	quality
Begin, go into, start up	Boost, increase, ramp up, speed up	Cut on, reduce, scale down	production
Be in charge of, supervise	Keep track of, monitor	Rationalize, simplify, streamline	the process
Excess, spare	Full, maximum, peak, total	Limited, reduce	capacity
Cary, have, hold, keep	Dispose of, get rid of, reduce	Reorder, replace	inventory (= stock)

6.7. Read the text about quality standards.

The International Organization for Standardization is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies. They promote the 'ISO 9000’ series of standards, and these cover a wide range of activities: determining customer needs, dealing with complaints, product testing, storage, etc. Companies are audited to make sure that they deserve the ISO award, and this provides both a discipline for manufacturers and an assurance for customers. Another set of standards, the ISO 14000 series, covers environmental standards. The ISO approach has been adopted worldwide, but it has its critics. People say that it encourages a recipe-based approach, sometimes called ‘management by manual', rather than a more customized approach. Also, the whole process of keeping records and carrying out internal audits is expensive and time-consuming. An alternative approach that is becoming very popular among large companies is 'Six Sigma’. This is a term from mathematics, but in a manufacturing context it means having a target of only 3.4 defects per million items. Like ISO, it now has a whole series of tools and techniques and is very expensive to implement. It recommends that organizations have a specially trained taskforce of internal consultants, dedicated full-time to improving processes. These people are ranked as Black Belt, Green Belt, etc. A third approach to measuring performance against a standard is ‘benchmarking’. This is not like ISO and Six Sigma because the standard is not pre-defined; instead the standard is simply the best practice of your competitors (or your own past results). The organization then tries to match (or even exceed) this best practice.

Cover the text. Make phrases by m atching the columns.

1. cover a wide worldwide

2. determine customer range of activities

3. deal to implement

4. be adopted needs

5. keep practice of your competitors

6. carry out internal against a standard

7. be expensive with complaints

8. be dedicated records

9. measure performance to improving processes

10. match the best audits

1.cover a wide range of activities

2.determine customer needs

3.deal with complaints

4.be adopted worldwide

5.keep records

6.keep out internal audits

7.be expensive to implement

8.be dedicated to improving processed

9.measure performance against a standard

10.match the best practice of your competitors