The detailed formulation of future actions to achieve a particular end is the management activity called planning. Planning therefore requires setting objectives and identifying methods to achieve those objectives. A firm may have the objective of increasing its short- and long-term profitability by improving the overall quality of its products. By improving product quality, the firm should be able to reduce scrap and rework, decrease the number of customer complaints and the amount of warranty work, reduce the resources currently assigned to inspection, and so on, thus increasing profitability.