Quality

• Quality


  Essential to a business' success. Customers must be happy with the products and services they receive. If they are not, a business is unlikely to gain a good reputation or repeat customers.
• Quality control


  • Process of inspecting products and services to ensure that what customers receive is of a high standard
  • Identifies and fixes problems and faults
  • The product is at the heart of quality control
  • The responsibility of one individual or a specific team of individuals
• Quality assurance


  • Process of carrying out quality checks at specific stages during the production process
  • Establishes a good system for quality management
  • The production process is at the heart of quality assurance
  • The responsibility of everyone involved in the manufacturing process
• Quality control methods reduce the number of faulty or sub-standard products that reach customers, but the disadvantage is that they only identify faults at the end of production, when they may be more expensive to fix than if they were found immediately.
• Quality assurance makes quality the responsibility of the employees involved in the production process, and businesses usually employ managers to oversee quality assurance.
• The quality assurance process can be expensive for businesses, and often the added costs are reflected in what customers are charged.
• Quality


  Essential to a business' success. Customers must be happy with the products and services they receive.
• If customers are not happy with the quality, a business is unlikely to gain a good reputation or repeat customers
• Quality management of goods and provision of services


  • Helps build a strong brand image
  • Allows a business to grow its market share
  • Enables a business to charge a premium price for high quality products/services
  • Helps limit additional costs and reduce wastage by ensuring things are done correctly the first time
• Customers will have an expectation about the quality of a product, even if the price is low
• If the quality of a product or service falls below the expectations of customers they will not return
• Negative experiences with poor quality goods/services may be shared on social media, making it more challenging for a business to gain new customers
• Quality control


  The process of inspecting products and services to ensure that what customers receive is of a high standard
• Quality assurance


  The process of managing the quality of a product where quality checks take place at several stages during production
• Quality management can avoid the need to deal with returned faulty goods, or have to implement a product recall
• Quality management can reduce waste, e.g. if a product is damaged during production, it will have to be scrapped and replaced at additional cost to the business
• Quality management can reduce employee costs, as replacing or recalling products will cost the manufacturer additional wages, because staff may need to work longer hours
• Businesses can use quality to gain a competitive advantage by developing a business culture where employees are motivated and care about their customers, the product and/or service, and the business’ reputation.
• A business can also develop a competitive edge by offering higher-quality products than its competitors, which could lead to increased sales and market share