Quality Management

1. Quality Management

2. Crosby • Quality is conformance to requirements or specifications

3. Juran • Quality is fitness for use

4. ANSI/ASQC • Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy given needs

5. Concept of Quality • Perfection • Consistency • Eliminating waste • Speed of delivery • Compliance with policies and procedures • Providing a good usable product • Doing it right the first time • Delighting or pleasing customers • Total customer service and satisfaction

6. Quality Concorde crashed it was as a result of a lack of attention to a piece of debris on the runway. The consequences to this were both profound and fatal. Concorde had not suddenly become a poor quality product, but the issue of safety (the most important element of travel in our evaluation of service quality) now became paramount.

7. Much of the early theory of manufacturing operations contains terms and concepts such as ‘acceptable quality level’ and an underlying philosophy that assumes mistakes will happen and that things will go wrong.

8. For much of the twentieth century, the question of quality was recognized as an issue, but the assumption was also made that with complex products and manufacturing processes there would inevitably be defects and problems that could not be predicted or prevented.

9. Needless to say, all of this quality ‘management’ results in extra costs, and they may be considerable. It is not just the cost of the direct employees involved that we have to consider, it is also the disruption, the wasted effort producing something of poor quality in the first place, the risk to reputation and goodwill, the wasted time and effort in attracting customers who then become dissatisfied and tell their friends, and so on.

10. Quality has moved from being something about which firms have much choice – it is now a competitive imperative. In general, customers make their purchase decisions based on price and a set of non-price factors; such as design, variety, speed of response and customization.