quality management

• What is quality?

  Quality is about meeting the needs and expectations of customers
• Why Quality Is important

  • Customer loyalty: customers return, make repeat purchases and recommend the product or service to others.

  • Strong brand reputation for quality

  • Retailers and other distributors want to stock the product
• Costs of Poor Quality

  • Product fails – e.g. a breakdown or unexpected wear and tear

  • Product does not perform as promised

  • Product is delivered late

  • Poor instructions/directions for use make using the product difficult or frustrating

  • Unresponsive customer service
• Poor quality results in additional business costs

  • Lost customers (expensive to replace – and they may tell others about their bad experience)

  • Cost of reworking or remaking product

  • Costs of replacements or refunds

  • Wasted materials
• key benefits of improved quality

  • Improved image & reputation, which should result in

  • Higher demand, which may in turn mean

  • Greater production volumes (possibly providing better economies of scale)

  • Lower unit costs because of less waste and rejected output

  • Fewer customer complaints (& more satisfied customers)

  • Potentially higher selling prices (less need to discount)
• Tangible measures of quality

  Reliability

  Functions & features

  Support levels & standards

  Cost of ownership (e.g. repairs)
• Intangible measures of quality

  Brand image

  Exclusiveness

  Market reputation
• Quality Control

  the process of inspecting products to ensure that they meet the required quality standards
• Advantages of Quality Control

  • With quality control, inspection is intended to prevent faulty products reaching the customer. This approach means having specially trained inspectors, rather than every individual being responsible for his or her own work. Furthermore, it is thought that inspectors may be better placed to find widespread problems across an organisation.
• Disadvantages of Quality Control

  • Rejected product is expensive for a firm as it has incurred the full costs of production but cannot be sold as the manufacturer does not want its name associated with substandard product.

  • A quality control approach can be highly effective at preventing defective products from reaching the customer. However, if defect levels are very high, the company’s profitability will suffer unless steps are taken to tackle the root causes of the failures
• Quality Assurance

  the processes that ensure production quality meets the requirements of customers.
• Advantages of quality assurance include

  • Costs are reduced because there is less wastage and re-working of faulty products as the product is checked at every stage

  • It can help improve worker motivation as workers have more ownership and recognition for their work (see Herzberg)

  • It can help break down ‘us and them’ barriers between workers and managers as it eliminates the feeling of being checked up on
• Total Quality Management (“TQM”)

  ‘quality chains’ in which each person or team treats the receiver of their work as if they were an external customer and adopts a target of ‘right first time’ or zero defects.
• Quality Assurance

  A medium to long-term process; cannot be implemented quickly

  Focus on processes – how things are made or delivered

  Achieved by improving production processes

  Targeted at the whole organisation

  Emphasises the customer
• Quality Control

  Can be implemented at short-notice

  Focus on outputs – work-in-progress and finished goods

  Achieved by sampling & checking

  Targeted at production activities

  Emphasises required standards

  Defect products are inspected out