This article documents the approach used and the design decisions taken during the establishment of a quality system for teaching activities in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, It describes the motivations for performing the work, how it was organized and resourced, the approach adopted, and the impact of the Higher Education Funding Council for England teaching quality assessment exercise. The article then details each of the stages of the project in turn, from specifying the scope of the work; analyzing the activities involved; defining the quality policy of the department; analyzing various quality system models and selecting the most appropriate one; defining the structure of the documentation to be produced; writing the quality manual and procedures; and the implementation of the system itself The article concludes by giving the current status of the system. Experiences gained from introducing and using the quality system are documented elsewhere: this article concentrates on its conception and design.