What was a grade of an “A” where you went to school?

For many people that answer is 90 – 100%. Since childhood, we’ve been conditioned to believe that 90% or above is quality work. You report for duty at your first job and think “if I do 90% on this, my boss will certainly track me down and give me an A”. Unfortunately, while 90% quality is excellent in some areas (You may wish 90% of your flights arrived on time) it’s unacceptable in other areas (your dentist says there’s a 90% chance he’s about to drill in the correct tooth).

Some processes and products require screaming-high quality levels. The next time you think about quality, consider this.

If 99.9% quality were good enough, then:

•   400 words in Webster’s Dictionary would be misspelled
•   Doctors would give 12 babies to the wrong parents each day
•   There would be 730 unsafe landings at O’Hare airport annually
•   500 incorrect surgical procedures would be performed each day
•   2,488,200 magazines would be published with the wrong covers
•   2,000,000 documents would be lost by the IRS in a year

(source: industryweek.com)