Fiorenzo FRANCESCHINI is Full Professor of Quality Engineering at Politecnico di Torino (Italy) – Department of Management and Production Engineering. He is author and coauthor of 6 books and about 140 published papers in scientific journals and international conference proceedings. His current research interests are in the areas of Quality Engineering, QFD, service quality management and industrial metrology. At present, he coordinates some important projects in the area of Quality Management for Public and Private organizations. He is a Senior Member of ASQ (American Society for Quality), INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences). He serves as a Member of the Editorial Board of Quality Engineering, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, International Journal of Services and Operations Management and Education+Training Journal and Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture. Since June 1996 he is Project Coordinator of the Quality Assurance Section of the Politecnico di Torino. Since August 1997, he is a member of the European Experts Database as evaluator of the Research Technological Development (RTD) proposals in Industrial and Materials Technologies for the European Community. He works as a referee for the International Journal of Quality Science, IIE Transaction, Research in Engineering Design, Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, European Journal of Operational Research.