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Quality Tools for the Scientific Research

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Abstract

Many years of application of quality in the industry have allowed the development of many techniques, simple and complex, that support various aspects of the project and the development and execution of processes. Among quality tools and methodologies that can be borrowed from the industrial field to support, streamline and ensure good research management and results, some have been already put into practice in the research field, with very good outcomes: Ishikawa diagram, Pareto chart and flowcharting among them. Moreover, specific attention is paid to soft skills like time management, communication and team work, as well as to knowledge management, decision-making and problem solving. In the following paragraphs, the description of such tools is tailored to the pitch of the publication and provided with references to explore more deeply any of the subjects presented, while the most useful methodologies are addressed in detail in Chap. 6.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist of the early twentieth century, proved that 80% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of 20% of the population.

  2. 2.

    See Chap. 6—Lean Management and Six Sigma.

  3. 3.

    See EP2457088/WO2011009825 patent for more details.

  4. 4.

    See Chap. 6—Failure Mode and Effect Analysis.

  5. 5.

    In this case: Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.

  6. 6.

    See Chap. 6—Lean Management and Six Sigma.

  7. 7.

    Reprinted with permission from Quality Management Journal © 2005 ASQ, www.asq.org.

  8. 8.

    Giovanna L. Liguori, Giuseppina Lacerra and F. Anna Digilio.

  9. 9.

    See Chap. 1/Acknowledgments.

  10. 10.

    quality4lab.cnr.it/en.

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Lanati, A. (2018). Quality Tools for the Scientific Research. In: Quality Management in Scientific Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76750-5_5

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