Operational Management : Quality

The definition of quality depends on the role of the people defining it. Today, there is no single universal definition of quality. Some people view quality as “performance to standards.” Others view it as “meeting the customer’s needs” or “satisfying the customer.” such that Quality can defined as the ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations. In the early 1970’s and 1980’s quality is not most important. They more focused on productivity. But now a day’s most of the company are using total quality management system and program to standardize their product and service quality. The quality can be used as competitive advantage for company. A quality program can save a company more money than it costs to implement. The company can make more profit and is best accomplished by reducing the cost of poor quality and preventing defects.

Quality is free but it is not gift. The companies have to do hard work to obtain the quality. There are different standard and institute who measures the quality of the product or services. There is always cost of quality is associated with the product or service and every company add these cost in the total cost of the product. The total cost of quality includes prevention, appraisal, and failure costs. The company are developing different quality control department and these department mainly focusing on continuous improving on quality. The quality is free is derived from the idea that ensuring quality within the product at the onset, before it reaches the customer, will always cost a certain amount of money. If any product or service is not according to quality standard the company have to pay for the quality defect. Thus, the term quality is free, is meant to hold that in the long run, quality is in some cases entirely without cost or is in fact less expensive than the lack thereof. It is a return on investment and thus can be said to be free. Most of the company are trying to achieve the certain quality on their product and services. As all the expenses done in the quality control and improvement are add into the total cost of product and when  people are ready to pay higher price to the quality product ( quality depend upon user perception)  I conclude quality is free or it some less expensive.

            In the world there is different quality awards that have been established to generate awareness and interest in the quality like The Baldrige award, European quality award, the demining prize. Quality plays an important role in the success of the company and it is need to certify by quality certification. Before going internationally the company need to certify as ISO 900 and 14000. It control the quality of the product, the company uses total quality management for continuous improvement on the quality.

Six Sigma is a business process for improving quality, reducing costs, and increasing customer’s satisfaction. Statistically six sigma means having no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities in any process, product, or service. Conceptually the term is much broader; referring to a program designed to reduce the occurrence of defects to achieve lower costs and improved customer satisfaction. It is extreme case to achieve the six sigma quality by any company. They are continuously improving their quality to reach the six sigma. It is standardize measurement of the quality. In the business world six sigma programs have become a key way to improve quality, save time, and cut costs. Since its initiation at Motorola in the 1980s, many companies including GE, Honeywell, Texas instruments, Eastman, Kodak Sony, and Johnson Controls have adopted six sigma and obtained substantial benefits. Motorola was one of the first companies to win the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988, due to its high focus on quality. The top level management must formulate and communicate the company overall objective and must analyze the daily data in order to know the quality index of the product.