🚀 go-pugleaf

Frank Isackson said, "Everything that can be measured or described in
words can be quantified.
In psychology we find scales for parental love and community ability, in
medicine, for pain, in politics, preferences from among multiple
candidates when even Key's voter's paradox applies and even in the realm
of marketing we can measure consumer preferences for color, taste,
packaging, desirability, sensory perception, cleanliness and other
seemingly unquantifiable attributes. The mathematical techniques are
well-known ranging from multidimensional scaling to newer methods using
the fuzzy logic of Zadeh, Kosko et. al."

This raises an issue that is more than semantic: the dimension
subjective:objective & and the dimension quantifiable:non-quantifiable
are not the same.

I can as Frank tells us, quantify things. This is often the basis of
surveys,
behaviorally anchored rating scales, etc. I can turn subjective data in
quantified data. I can also turn objective data into quantified data. The
process is often similar to turn variables data into attributes data.

The question which stated the thread, however, is the use of subjective
data versus objective data in rating suppliers.

Since I had never thought there was a question, I'll frame my new
understanding.

I it acceptable to rate suppliers using either only subjective data or a
combination
of subjective and objective data. In other words is any method that does
not rely
exclusively on objective data a fundamentally flawed method?

Dan O'Leary CQA, CQE, CQM, CRE
Business Process Executive for Manufacturing
doleary@qbe.picker.com