What is Quality?

To understand total quality, we must first understand qual­ity. Customers that are businesses will define quality very clearly using specifications, standards, and other measures. This makes the point that quality can be defined and mea­sured. Although few consumers could define quality if asked, all know it when they see it. This makes the critical point that quality is in the eye of the beholder. With the total quality approach, customers ultimately define quality.

People deal with the issue of quality continually in their daily lives. We concern ourselves with quality when we are shopping groceries, eating in a restaurant, and making a major purchase, such as an automobile, a home, a television, or a personal computer. Perceived quality is a major fac­tor by which people make distinctions in the marketplace. Whether we articulate them openly or keep them in the back of our minds, we all apply a number of criteria when mak­ing a purchase. The extent to which a purchase meets these criteria determines its quality in our eyes.

One way to understand quality as a consumer-driven concept is to consider the example of eating at a restaurant. How will you judge the quality of the restaurant? Most peo­ple apply such criteria as the following:

• Service
• Response time
• Food preparation
• Environment or atmosphere
• Price
• Selection

This example gets at one aspect of quality—the results aspect. Does the product or service meet or exceed customer expec­tations? This is a critical aspect of quality, but it is not the only one. Total quality is a much broader concept that encom­passes not just the results aspect but also the quality of people and the quality of processes.

Quality has been defined in a number of different ways by a number of different people and organizations. Consider the following definitions:

• Performance that meets or exceeds expectations.¹
• Performance that meets the customer’s needs.²
• Consistently meeting customer needs and expectations.³
• Satisfying the customer today and getting better tomorrow.⁴

In his landmark book Out of the Crisis, quality pioneer W Edwards Deming makes the point that quality must be defined from the perspective of the stakeholder. The customer has a stake in the quality of a product or service, the production workers have a stake in it, and the organization that employs the produc­tion worker has a stake in it. Each of these entities should have their own view of quality and all of their views should mesh.⁵

Although Deming’s landmark book is now dated, his thoughts on quality are still valid and insightful. Deming makes the point that quality has many different criteria and that these criteria change continually.⁶ To complicate matters even fur­ther, different people value the various criteria differently. For this reason, it is important to measure consumer preferences and to remeasure them frequently. Deming gives an example of the criteria that are important to him in selecting paper:⁷

• It is not slick and, therefore, takes pencil or ink well.
• Writing on the back does not show through.
• It fits into a three-ring notebook.
• It is available at most stationery stores and is, therefore, easily replenished.
• It is reasonably priced.

Each of these preferences represents a variable the manu­facturer can measure and use to continually improve decision making. Deming is well known for his belief that 94% of work­place problems are caused by management and especially for his role in helping Japan rise up out of the ashes of World War II to become a major industrial power. Deming’s contribu­tions to the quality movement are explained in greater depth later in this chapter.

Although there is no universally accepted definition of quality, enough similarity does exist among the definitions that common elements can be extracted:

• Quality involves meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
• Quality applies to products, services, people, processes, and environments.
• Quality is an ever-changing state (i.e., what is considered quality today may not be good enough to be considered quality tomorrow).

With these common elements extracted, the following defi­nition of quality can be set forth:

Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, ser­vices, people, processes, and environments that meets or exceeds expectations and helps produce superior value.

Consider the individual elements of this definition: The dynamic state element speaks to the fact that what is consid­ered quality can and often does change as time passes and cir­cumstances are altered. For example, gas mileage is an impor­tant criterion in judging the quality of modern automobiles. However, in the days of 20-cent-per-gallon gasoline, consum­ers were more likely to concern themselves with horsepower, cubic inches, and acceleration rates than with gas mileage.

The products, services, people, processes, and environments element is critical. It makes the point that quality applies not just to the products and services provided, but also to the peo­ple and processes that provide them and the environments in which they are provided. In the short term, two competitors who focus on continual improvement might produce a prod­uct of comparable quality. But the competitor who looks be­yond just the quality of the finished product and also focuses on the continual improvement of the people who produce the product, the processes they use, and the environment in which they work will win in the long run and, most frequently, in the short run. This is because quality products are produced most consistently by quality organizations.

The superior value element acknowledges that quality is a key element in providing superior value (i.e., superior quality, cost, and service).

Quality, Value, and Organizational Excellence

It is important for quality professionals to understand how quality fits into the bigger picture of providing superior value to customers. Organizations survive and thrive in a globally competitive marketplace by providing superior value to customers. Achieving organizational excellence is about developing the ability to consistently provide superior value to customers over the long term. Superior value has three basic elements: superior quality, superior cost, and su­perior service.

In order to achieve organizational excellence—the level of performance necessary for long-term success in a global environment—it is necessary to consistently provide supe­rior value to customers. Quality is obviously one of the key elements in providing superior value. But total quality is even more than that. Total quality is a broad-based approach that encompasses all three of the elements of superior value. Continually improving the quality of products, processes, ser­vices, and costs is what total quality is all about—hence the name total quality. Organizations that effectively apply the total quality approach to management are the ones most likely to achieve organizational excellence.

Source: Goetsch David L., Davis Stanley B. (2016), Quality Management for organizational excellence introduction to total Quality, Pearson; 8th edition.