Quality Engineering in the e-Business Era : Research Framework and Direction

The research in the field of quality engineering has mainly focused on the manufactured products. The philosophy and concept of the existing quality engineering should be equally applicable in the coming e-Business era. However, there would be numerous new quality-related issues in the e-Business environment, due to the fundamental change in the business processes, which did not exist in the past. This paper first proposes a framework for quality engineering research suited for the e-Business environment, and then identifies major quality-related issues that should be resolved in the near future. It also evaluates the potential usefulness and limitations of the existing quality engineering tools in resolving such issues.