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What Is Your Definition of Quality

There are many definitions of quality depending on factors like context and perspective. Quality can refer to a product's inherent properties that satisfy needs, freedom from deficiencies, or conformance to specifications. It also depends on customer perception and value. Overall, quality aims to fulfill customer expectations and requirements through features, affordability, and reducing waste.

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Eileen Le Roux
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126 views4 pages

What Is Your Definition of Quality

There are many definitions of quality depending on factors like context and perspective. Quality can refer to a product's inherent properties that satisfy needs, freedom from deficiencies, or conformance to specifications. It also depends on customer perception and value. Overall, quality aims to fulfill customer expectations and requirements through features, affordability, and reducing waste.

Uploaded by

Eileen Le Roux
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is your definition of quality?

gbnews.ch/what-is-your-definition-of-quality/

Enrique Diaz August 19,


2014

There are many definitions of quality. Some


are more related to objective facts while
others to more subjective feelings, but they
are interdependent. If you look in a
dictionary, you will find several definitions. In
addition, every quality expert defines it in
different way depending on their
environment and criteria.

Quality could be defined as a basic tool for a


natural property of any good or service that
allows it to be compared with any other good or service of its kind. The word quality has
many meanings, but basically, it refers to the set of inherent properties of an object that
allows satisfying stated or implied needs.

Furthermore, the quality of a good or service is the perception that a customer has about it.
It is a consumer’s mind-set who accepts a specific good or service and acknowledges its
ability to meet his or her needs.

Product features

One definition of quality relates it to product features. For example, a luxury car designed
for elegance features plentiful and sumptuous comfort: matching walnut burl veneers,
exotic leather seats, luxury instrument panel, whitewall tires, top-of-the-line performance
and an offer of excellent service that treats the owners of this car like royalty. In this case,
product features will have a major effect on company revenues because higher quality in
this case can result in the possibility to charge premium pricing.

Freedom from deficiencies

Another definition defines quality as a product or service free from deficiencies. Following
the car example, imagine a compact car which hardly has any repairs, no engine problems, a
paint finish that doesn’t rust and hassle-free car service. Here, freedom from deficiencies

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has a major impact on reducing the company costs because higher quality in this case
means less rework, fewer warranty claims and no customer complaints.

So at the end product features and freedom from deficiencies together are essential to
meeting customers’ needs. From this, we should define quality in the context under
consideration, for example, the quality of the postal service, dental service, of a product, of
life, etc.

Production perspective

Quality can be defined as conformance to specifications. The degree to which a product


meets the design specifications offering a satisfaction factor that fulfils all the expectations
that a customer wants. Products are manufactured and controlled following normative
regulations accepted in the market, so that in case of an inspection by a regulatory body,
the product proves that it meets the requirements established by the related certifying
organizations.

More specifically, in manufacturing, quality can be a measure of excellence or a state of


being free from defects, deficiencies and significant variations. Quality is accomplished by a
strict and consistent commitment to certain standards to achieve uniformity of a product in
order to satisfy specific customer requirements. If an automobile company finds a defect in
one of their cars and makes a product recall, customer reliability and therefore production
will decrease because trust will be lost in the car’s quality.

Value perspective

Quality means providing value to the customer; that is, offering conditions of product use or
service that meet or exceed customer’s expectations, yet are still affordable. Quality also
takes into account the reduction of waste that a product may cause to the environment or
human society, yet still allowing the manufacturing company to maintain customer
satisfaction.

Another interesting element within the concept of quality is the “wow” effect. Quality
delivers to the customer not only what he wants, but also what he never imagined he
wanted –and that once he has it, he realizes that this product was exactly what he always
had wanted. However this is still a very subjective judgment. In today’s world, companies are
still struggling to be consistent in meeting basic customer needs.

Other definitions from recognized organizations and experts in the world of quality are:

Quality is the degree to which an object or entity (e.g., process, product, or service)
satisfies a specified set of attributes or requirements.

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The quality of something can be determined by comparing a set of inherent
characteristics with a set of requirements. If those inherent characteristics meet all
requirements, high or excellent quality is achieved. If those characteristics do not meet
all requirements, a low or poor level of quality is achieved.
Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements.
A subjective term for which each person or sector has its own definition. In technical
usage, quality can have two meanings: 1. the characteristics of a product or service
that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs; 2. a product or service free of
deficiencies. According to Joseph Juran, quality means “fitness for use”. According to
Philip Crosby, it means “conformance to requirements”. [i]

In the end, quality is an outcome, a characteristic of a good or service provided to a


customer, and the hallmark of an organization which has satisfied all of its stakeholders.
Customer requirements are the core ideal behind all quality definitions.

Other factors related to quality are: exact and desired amount of product to be
manufactured and offered; pace ​of product distribution; speed of customer service;
appropriate pricing in line with supply and demand pressures; degree of accuracy with
which a product is manufactured concerning its design; ease of use and safety; reliability;
impact the product has on the society and the environment, etc.

The customer as the new target

Today, there is also a trend in quality placing the customer as playing an active role when
rating the quality of a product. This trend aims to create a standard based on customers’
opinion. The quality of a good or service is not determined only by purely objective
parameters but also includes the views of a customer using a given product or service.

As we can see, quality is a complex concept interrelated with many other disciplines from
engineering, economy, environment through human relations. In the next article in this 3-
part series we will see how quality is measured depending on its context and briefly
introduce some of the most popular quality management systems.

Sources

[i] EU Quality Assurance : http://www.eqavet.eu/qa/gns/glossary/q/quality.aspx

International Organization for Standardization ISO


http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/management-standards/iso_9000.htm

Institut fédéral de métrologie (METAS) http://www.metas.ch/metasweb

European Committee for Standardization (CEN)


https://www.cen.eu/about/Pages/default.aspx
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EU Quality Assurance http://www.eqavet.eu/

American Society for Quality (ASQ) http://asq.org/index.aspx

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_(business)

Photo credit: Toyota UK via photopin cc

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