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Edwards, George D. (deceased): First president of ASQ. Edwards was noted for his administrative skills in forming and preserving the Society. He was the head of the inspection engineering department and the director of quality assurance at Bell Telephone Laboratories. He also served as a consultant to the Army Ordnance Department and the War Production Board during World War II. Edwards was an ASQ Honorary Member.

Effect: What results after an action has been taken; the expected or predicted impact when an action is to be taken or is proposed.

Effectiveness: The state of having produced a decided upon or desired effect.

Efficiency: The ratio of the output to the total input in a process.

Efficient: A term describing a process that operates effectively while consuming the minimum amount of resources (such as labor and time).

Eighty-twenty (80-20): A term referring to the Pareto principle, which was first defined by J. M. Juran in 1950. The principle suggests most effects come from relatively few causes; that is, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the possible causes.

Electric data interchange (EDI): The electronic exchange of data between customers and suppliers and vice versa.

Employee involvement (EI): A practice within an organization whereby employees regularly participate in making decisions on how their work areas operate, including making suggestions for improvement, planning, goal setting and monitoring performance.

Empowerment: A condition whereby employees have the authority to make decisions and take action in their work areas without prior approval. For example, an operator can stop a production process if he or she detects a problem, or a customer service representative can send out a replacement product if a customer calls with a problem.

EN 46000: Medical device quality management systems standard. EN 46000 is technically equivalent to ISO 13485:1996, an international medical device standard. So few differences exist between the two that if an organization is prepared to comply with one, it may easily comply with the other as well.

EN 9100: An international quality management standard for the aerospace industry (see AS9100).

Engineering analysis:  The process of applying engineering concepts to the design of a product, including tests such as heat transfer analysis, stress analysis, or analysis of the dynamic behavior of the system being designed.

Entitlement:  As good as a process can get without capital investment.

Environmental Auditors Registration Association (EARA): Merged with the Institute of Environmental Management and the Institute of Environmental Assessment to form IEMA.

Error:  A cause of defects. Errors originate from problems with workers, materials, machines, methods, measurement, and nature.

Ethics: The practice of applying a code of conduct based on moral principles to day-to-day actions to balance what is fair to individuals or organizations and what is right for society.

Excited quality:  The additional benefit a customer receives when a product or service goes beyond basic expectations. Excited quality "wows" the customer. If it is missing, the customer will still be satisfied.

Exciter: See "delighter."

Expectations: Customer perceptions about how an organization's products and services will meet their specific needs and requirements.

Expected quality:  The minimum benefit a customer expects to receive from a product or service.

Experimental design: A formal plan that details the specifics for conducting an experiment, such as which responses, factors, levels, blocks, treatments and tools are to be used.

Experimental training techniques:  Training that is hands-on and provides the recipients of training the opportunity to experience in some manner the concepts that are being taught.

External customer: A person or organization that receives a product, service or information but is not part of the organization supplying it. (See also "internal customer.")

External failure: Nonconformance identified by the external customers.

External validation:  Using benchmarking as a way to ensure that a firm's current practices are comparable to those being used by benchmark firms.

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