L

Leader: An individual who is recognized by others as a person they will follow.

Leadership: An essential part of a quality improvement effort. Organization leaders must establish a vision, communicate that vision to those in the organization and provide the tools and knowledge necessary to accomplish the vision.

Lean manufacturing: Initiative focused on eliminating all waste in manufacturing processes. Principles of lean include zero waiting time, zero inventory, scheduling (internal customer pull instead of push system), batch to flow (cut batch sizes), line balancing and cutting actual process times.

Life cycle stages: Design, manufacturing, assembly, installation, operation and shutdown of product.

Listening post: An individual who, by virtue of his or her potential for having contact with customers, is designated to collect, document and transmit pertinent feedback to a central collection authority within the organization.

Lost customer analysis: Analysis conducted to determine why a customer or a class of customers was lost.

Lot: A defined quantity of product accumulated under conditions considered uniform for sampling purposes.

Lot, batch: A definite quantity of some product manufactured under conditions of production that are considered uniform.

Lot quality: The value of percentage defective or of defects per hundred units in a lot.

Lot size (also referred to as N): The number of units in the lot.

Lot tolerance percentage defective (LTPD): Expressed in percentage defective, the poorest quality in an individual lot that should be accepted.
Note: LTPD is used as a basis for some inspection systems and is commonly associated with a small consumer's risk.

Lower control limit (LCL): Control limit for points below the central line in a control chart.

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