Quality assurance

Sixth on this list is la capacità di processo, and the trap is that the obvious rendering is itself a real term meaning something else. Italian covers with la capacità everything English divides between « capacity » and « capability ». La capacità del serbatoio is how much the tank holds, which is capacity; la capacità di consegnare in tempo is what a firm is able to do, which is capability; and la capacità giuridica is a third thing again, the standing to act in law. Here the reading is the second one. What la capacità di processo measures is whether the spread of a process fits inside the tolerance it has been given — hence the sentence on this page, la capacità di processo si calcola su cinquanta pezzi. The English for it is « process capability », and « process capacity » is not a clumsier version of the same figure but a different one: how many parts an hour the line can put out. A report that promises capability and delivers throughput has answered a question nobody asked. Where Italian needs that second figure it says la capacità produttiva.