Quality Management

• Quality is where a product or service meets the needs and expectations of the customer
• Customer needs and expectations includes: Performance, reliability, appearance and value for money
• If a product doesn’t meet Quality expectations it is considered substandard
• Tangible measured of quality includes: Reliability, cost of ownership, support levels, standards and functions
• Intangible measures of quality includes: Brand image, exclusivness and market reputation
• Markets are highly competitive meaning customers are more: Knowledgable and prepared to complain
• If a business can develop a repuatation for high quality then it may be able to create an advantage over its competitors
• Benefits of greater quality include: Higher customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and lower marketing costs.
• Quality enables a business to differentiate its product from competition giving it a competitive advantage
• Businesses that provide high quality and have gained competitive advantage include: Apple, BMW, Disney and Waitrose.
• Quality includes the whole customer experience: Buying process, Product reliability, cost of ownership and after sales service
• Examples of low price, high quality businesses: Aldi, Nando’s, Premier Inn and Ikea
• Costs of poor quality includes: Lost customers, cost of remaking products, costs of replacements or refunds, waste.
• Poor Quality is a source of competitive disadvantage
• Quality management is concerned with controlling actiivities to ensure that the product or service is of a high quality
• Quality control is the process of inspecting products to ensure they meet the required quality standards
• Quality control is mainly about detecting defective output rather than preventing it
• Quality control can be costly
• Quality assurance is processes that ensure production quality meets the requirements of customers
• Quality Assurance looks at how a business can improve the production of products in order to minimise substandard output
• Total quality management is a management philosophy that focuses on continuous improvements of products and services with the involvement of the whole workforce.
• Advantages of TQM include: Customers being placed at heart of production process, Motivational, Less Waste and lower costs
• Disadvantages of TQM includes: Requires strong leadership and team, substantial investment in training and bureaucracy
• Kaizen is another kind of quality assurance that involves the whole organization.
• Kaizen is based on the concept of continuous improvement
• Kaizen encourages employees to engage fully with finding ways to improve quality processes
• Potential challenges of Kaizen include: Change in culture of business, Potentially high costs due to training and new processes
• Benefits of Kaizen include: Improved productivity, Increased employee motivation and job satisfaction, Reduced waste and cost savings