Quality Management

Slide 1
Quality means different things in different
operations

Discuss your understanding of what quality means:

1. When purchasing goods

2. When purchasing services

Can you share any specific examples of products that you
feel are high-quality?
Slide 2
 • The manufacturing-based view
assumes quality is all about making or
providing error-free products or
services.
• The user-based view assumes quality
is all about providing products or
What is services that are fit for their purpose.
Quality? • The product-based view sees quality
as a precise and measurable set of
characteristics.
Slide 3
Definitions of Quality
• Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils
requirements’ – ISO (EN) 9000:2000 Quality Management Systems.
• ‘Fitness for purpose or use’ – Juran
• ‘Quality should be aimed at the needs of the consumer, present and
future’ – Deming.
• ‘The total composite product and service characteristics …. through
which the product and service in use will meet the expectation by
the customer’ – Feigenbaum
• ‘Conformance to requirements’ – Crosby
Slide 4
Definitions of Quality

• Quality: “The fitness for purpose or the degree of

conformance of the outputs of a process or the process
itself to requirements.”

Slide 5
 • A degree of excellence
• Conformance to requirements
• Totality of characteristics which act
So, Quality is: to satisfy a need
• Fitness for use
• Fitness for purpose
• Freedom from defects
• Delighting customers
Slide 6
 Functionality - how well the product or service does
the job for which it was intended.

Appearance - aesthetic appeal, look, feel, sound

and smell of the product or service.
Quality
Reliability - consistency of product or services
Characteristics: performance over time.

Durability - the total useful life of the product or

service.

Recovery - the ease with which problems with the

product or service can be rectified or resolved.
Slide 7
Quality of Design
• Quality of design is a measure of
how well the product or service
is designed to meet the agreed
requirements

Slide 8
Project Management Quality

Slide 9
Quality Management in the APM BoK

• Quality Planning

• Quality Assurance

• Quality Control

• Continuous Improvement
Slide 10
Managing Project Quality

Slide 11
Relates to PMQ 11.1 explain what is meant by quality planning
Quality Management in the APM BoK

• Quality Planning: takes the defined scope and

specifies the acceptance criteria used to validate
that the outputs are fit for purpose to the
sponsor. It is focused on the specific outputs of a
project to enable quality control during
deployment.

Definition from APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition

Slide 12
Relates to PMQ 11.1 explain what is meant by quality planning
 Learning objective: 11.1 explain what is meant by quality planning

Quality Planning
The quality plan documents:
• Methods of verifying that the outputs meet requirements
• Pass/fail criteria for each method
• Frequency of the tests, checks or audits that will be carried out
• Requirement for resource e.g. test equipment/staff.

“Obtaining stakeholder agreement facilitates the handover of the

projects outputs on completion and planning early on how this will
be done is a key success factor for project management.”

Source: 4.1.5 (Quality Planning) and APM Study Guide p85-6 and APM Glossary

Relates to PMQ 11.1 explain what is meant by quality planning

Slide 13
Quality Management in the APM BoK
• Quality Assurance: “The process of evaluating overall project performance on a
regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality
standards.”
• Confidence to organisation that projects are being well managed.
• Consistent use of processes and standards
• Staff have correct knowledge skills and training
• Must be independent of the project
• Activities are undertaken earlier in project lifecycle
• Quality assurance must be independent of the project,
programme or portfolio to which it applies.

https://www.apm.org.uk/media/35530/assurance-toolkit-final-v2.pdf
Slide 14
Quality Management in the APM BoK
Quality Control:
• “Consistsof inspection, measurement and testing to verify that the project outputs
meet acceptance criteria defined during quality planning.”
• Inspection testing and measurement.
• Verifies deliverables conform to spec.
• Spec/acceptance criteria can be modified through change control.
• Activities are undertaken once outputs are complete

• Quality control activities determine whether acceptance criteria have, or have not,
been met. For this to be effective, specifications must be under strict configuration
control. It is possible that, once agreed, the specification may need to be modified.
Slide 15
Quality Management in the APM BoK

• Continuous Improvement: the generic term used by

organisations to describe how information provided by quality
assurance and quality control processes is used to drive
improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.

Slide 16
 Relates to PMQ : 11.2 differentiate between quality control and quality
Quality Control v Assurance assurance

Quality control: “Consists of inspection, measurement and testing to verify

that the project outputs meet acceptance criteria defined during quality
planning.”
Quality assurance (QA): “The process of evaluating overall project
performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will
satisfy the relevant quality standards.”

Quality Assurance
• Confidence to organisation that projects are being well managed.
• Consistent use of processes and standards
• Staff have correct knowledge skills and training
• Must be independent of the project
• Activities are undertaken earlier in project lifecycle
Quality Control
• Inspection testing and measurement.
• Verifies deliverables conform to spec.
• Spec/acceptance criteria can be modified through change control.
• Activities are undertaken once outputs are complete

Source: 4.3.8 (Quality Control) and APM Study Guide p85-6

Slide 17
Why Quality Management?
• In a competitive marketplace organizations have used quality strategically to
win customers, steal business resources or funding.
• Attention to quality improves performance in reliability and price and
enhances reputation.
• For any organization, there are several aspects of reputation which are
important:
• It is built upon the competitive elements of quality, reliability and price, of which quality has become
strategically the most important.
• Once an organization acquires a poor reputation for quality, it takes a very long time to change it.
• Reputations, good or bad, can quickly become national reputations! Japan, Germany, Swiss..
• Quality management can be learned like any other skill, and used to turn round a poor reputation, in time.

Slide 18
Service Quality

Slide 19
Service Quality

Service Quality is a measure of how well the

service level delivered matches customer
expectations. Delivering quality service means
conforming to customer expectations on a
consistent basis.
Slide 20
Service-based components of quality

• Tangibles: Appearance of physical elements

• Reliability: Dependable and accurate performance
• Responsiveness: Promptness; helpfulness
• Assurance: Competence, courtesy, credibility, security
• Empathy: Easy access, good communication, understanding of
customer

Slide 21
Service Quality - SERVQUAL
• To measure customer satisfaction with various aspects of
service quality.
• Zeithmal developed a survey research instrument based on
premise that customers evaluate firm’s service quality by
comparing
• The perceptions of service actually received
• The prior expectations of companies in a particular industry
• Developed primarily in context of face-to-face encounters
• Scale contains items reflecting five dimensions of service quality

Slide 22
Service Quality - SERVQUAL
• Respondents complete a series of scales that measure
their expectations of companies in a particular industry
on a wide array of service characteristics
• Subsequently, they are asked to record their perceptions
of a specific company whose services they have used

What is good or poor quality?

Slide 23
Perceived quality is governed by the gap between customers’ expectations and
their perceptions of the product or service

Gap Gap
Customers’
expectations Customers’
for the Customers’ Customers perceptions
product or Customers’ expectation ’ Customers’ of the
service perception s for the perception expectations product or
s of the product or s of the for the service
product or service product or
product or service
service service

Expectations > Expectations Expectations

perceptions = perceptions <
perceptions
Perceived Perceived Perceived
quality is poor quality is quality is
acceptable good
Perceived quality is governed by the magnitude and direction of the gap between customers’ expectations and their
Figure 17.3 Slide 24
perceptions of the service or product
Service Quality - The Gaps
Model

Slide 25
 The Gaps
Model
• GAP 1: Not knowing what
customers expect
• GAP 2: wrong service
quality standards
• GAP 3: The service
performance gap
• GAP 4: promises do not
match actual delivery
• GAP 5: The difference
between customer
perception and
expectation
Gaps Model – Gaps 1 and 2
• Provider Gap 1: Management Perception Gap
• Not knowing what customers expect – What is the source of this gap?
(Reasons: Poor marketing, lack of interaction, too transaction focused)
• Provider Gap 2: Quality Specification Gap
• Not selecting the right service designs and standards - Results from a
difference between management perceptions of what customers expect
and the specifications that management draws up when detailing the
service quality delivery actions that are required.
• Service design and performance standards are prerequisites for bridging
this gap.
(Reasons: Poor service design, lack of task standardisation, lack of focus)
Gaps Model – Gaps 3
• Provider Gap 3: Service Delivery Gap
• Not delivering to service standards – results from a mismatch between the
service delivery specifications required by management and the actual
service that is delivered by front line staff.
(Reasons: Poor control, poor tech, lack of training and skills)
• Provider Gap 4: Market Communication Gap
• Not matching performance to promises - This is the gap between the delivery
of the customer experience and what is communicated to customers, i.e. the
discrepancy between actual service and the promised one.
(Reasons: Over promising, poor horizontal comms, lack of org consistency)
Gaps Model – Gaps 5
• Customer Gap 5: Gap between expectations and perceptions
• Unless Gap 5 is kept under check, it may result in lost customers, bad
reputation, negative corporate image.
(Impacted by gaps 1-4, measurable)
The cost of rectifying errors becomes increasingly expensive the
longer the errors remain uncorrected in
the development and launch process

10,000

Cost to rectify error

1,000

100
10
1
Concept Design Prototype Pilot Market use
production

Stage in the development and launch process

Uses of SERVQUAL
• To assess a company's service quality along each of the 5 SERVQAL dimensions. E.g.
XYZ Events Ltd carries out the servqual survey to know where it stands in the
perception of customers.
• To track customer's expectations and perceptions over time. E.g. XYZ Events Ltd
wants to compare its score of last year against that of the current year to know
whether it has improved or has to improve
• To compare a company's SERVQUAL scores against competitors. E.g.: XYZ Events Ltd
wants to compare its score against that of 1570 Events Ltd to see who is the best.
• To identify and examine customer segments that differ significantly in their
assessment of a company's service performance.
• To assess internal service quality (interdepartmental comparison)
Closing thoughts
• Summary
• Any further questions?

Slide 32
References
• APM (2019), APM Body of Knowledge (APMBOK) 7th edition,
Association for Project Management, High Wycombe, UK.
• Chapter 1 of the Oakland on Quality Management textbook by
Oakland (2004)
• Chapter 17 of the Operations Management 6 th edition textbook
by Slack et al. (2010).