A free-trade area is the region encompassing a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free-trade agreement (FTA). Such agreements involve cooperation between at least two countries to reduce trade barriers â import quotas and tariffs â and to increase trade of goods and services with each other.
The team can use interviews or written surveys to identify target values to use as goals for improving the product or service produced by the process. Identifying a problem associated with the process helps define the process improvement objective.
Quality Improvement (see also Cummings, Phillips, Tilbrook and Lowe, this issue) is concerned with raising the quality of a product or service. The type of comparison that is made when engaged in quality improvement is between the current standard of a product or service and the standard being aimed for. Quality improvement is concerned with comparing the quality of what is about to be produced with the quality of what has been produced in the past.