>>Hi George,
>>
>>I think the "problem" here is one of attitude and perception. IMHO, the attitude of the original statement being to get as much money out of as meny people as possible. The perception is that the earlier things fail, the more people have to replace them ( as you found with your van ) and therefore produce more income. This would obviously produce a quandary of "make it good enough to last long enough so people think it has quality, but short enough so more items of the product have to be bought thus producing more revenue." Prsonally, I think ( My very IMHO ) this is one of the problems in the USA today. For me, I think it should be made as well as possible with the resources available for the price that will have to be paid for it.
>>
>Hi Bill,
>
>The whole idea behind my definition is to create a fixed reference point for the term "quality". Without it, there's no way to have meaningful dialog about the subject, since different people have different perceptions of the word. If a product does what it's supposed to, and has the lifespan that it's supposed to, then it's a quality product. The biggest misconception is that for the producer of the product this has to cost more.

Um, to get my thinking clear, then does this mean that if the producer makes a product that is intentionally meant to last only a short time, we can still call it a quality product? And does this mean that for a product with a warranty, the measure of the quality of the product is the warranty? ( eg your van that conked before the 70K warranty )