scope:

This standard is intended as a guide for handling problems concerning the economic control of quality of materials, manufactured products, services, etc. It has particular reference to methods of collecting, arranging, and analyzing inspection and test records in a manner designed to detect lack of uniformity of quality.

For the sake of simplicity, the term product will be used hereafter, whether the object whose quality is being considered is a material, a semi-finished or finished product, or a service. Thus the words "manufacturer, purchaser, production process, etc." should be interpreted broadly to cover many fields of interest.