Definition Quality - What is your Definition of "Quality"?

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Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
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#22
From the misc.industry.quality NG:

From: "Michael Schlueter" - Philips.com
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: How to define quality?
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 16:53:55 +0100

Hi,

May be your customer can't compare and know, what can be expected - but you probably can.

I still find Taguchi's definition of quality very logical and striking; can you adapt it to your situation? His basic assumption is simple: any product causes monetary loss in the hand of its customer. E.g. if it does not work as it should, you have to complain or throw it away; if the service is not as expected, somebody else must be called in. No matter how, the customer loses money.

If you can estimate or measure this amount, you have a clear indicator of your qualtiy level. Taguchi's definition reads:

"The quality of a product is the monetary loss passed to society once the product has been build and shipped."

In other words: the product (your service) is no longer under your control - it is shipped out - your customer deals with the results of your service ... Customers do to it whatever they do. If your product incures monetary loss, somebody has to pay it: your customer by a higher price, the end-user by a higher price, society by eliminating waste and disposals (such as computers, service-folders, waste from travel incurred by consultancy etc.). Somebody (society) pays the price of *bad* quality. - How much?

The opposite conclusion from Taguchi is even more interesting, in my view: do anything to minimize total loss. In other words: find ways to create excellent service at low cost for you and low loss to society.

From this perspective "beloved" indicators like response-time for helpdesk calls, amounts on bills,...( what you mentioned) reveal their true nature: they tend to miss the point AND indicate something important at the same time.

E.g. what is the drama with a long response time? Why is it bad? Is a response time of 1h good or bad? When is it bad and when not? - I think this becomes self-evident when we look at the *consequences* - they cause a certain monetary loss.

If my car is repaired after 1h - this is probably excellent. If I have to wait at the dentist to easy my pain for an hour - this is probably absolutely bad. If I have to wait 1h until my computer responds - this is #@!!! Why?

If I can not use my car for 1h the incurred monetary loss is - probably smaller than in the dentist or computer case.

In other words: just try it - and reveal the important aspects of your business: how you (or something else) create loss inevitably to your customers ;-) Then improve.

Michael Schlueter

PS:
The car example is a good way to understand how cranked our perception of quality is. If my car is down somebody has to repair it. Once it is repaired I pay a lot of money for it. Why? Did I buy the car to spend more money on it lateron? - No, I bought it to drive it. If I can not drive it I should get money back after repair. "We repaired your car at no cextra-cost for you and give you $1.000 for your inconvenience." That would be quality - low loss for me ! - Try to figure out the minimum quality requirements for such a (repair) service, which is profitable ;-)


Answer:
The repair service needs another source of income, because its customers do not pay, they take. Who is the logical source for funding? Who built-in the bad quality (low time to repair)? - The manufacturer of the car is a logical source of income for the repair service. He/she should be charged by the $1.000+extra_costs. - As a consequence, this manufacturer would develop a sense of urgency for quality ... This holds for other products, too. ... Ultimately, this would lead to excellent cars and die-out of repair stations. At this point we need creativity and innovation: what other useful job should the people do, who run a repair service before? - How could they contribute to lower loss to society while prospering as individuals?

(Try to get this from counting bills ;-)

You see, when we want to improve - and if we really succeed - we need other means to avoid inhuman decisions (such as lay-offs of jobs). How to avoid inhuman actions in quality improvement? This is the real task.

To stay human, at some point I, as a christian, have to put the quality improvement activity back into Gods hand; because he cares and I tend to be inhuman (or sinfull) - that's my nature as a human.

But, for the less-religous readers: such inhuman decisions from improvement *can* be measured by quality loss again: the more inhuman the consequences, the more poor people are 'produced' => total quality loss increases, if counted correctly.

So evaluate total monetary loss - and do it completely and correctly.
 

Marc

Hunkered Down for the Duration with a Mask on...
Staff member
Admin
#23
From: "Jean-Philippe Hubin"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality

Subject: Re: How to define quality?
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 16:26:08 +0100

If the definitions of quality from Deming, Juran, or Ishikawa don't match the theories of V. Packard, don't question the definitions but the theories. (IMHO. Unless you want to write a doctoral thesis on this subject). Doing so will give you some perfectly acceptable definitions of quality. I personaly find the good old "Fit for use, conform to requirements" very useful.

Measuring the quality in services is often more tricky than in manufacturing. For two main reasons:

1. We have been writing requirements and specifications for manufacturing products for years and gained experience and knowledge about it. Quality of services is a newer concept, requirements for services have not been developed for as long.

2. As you mention, measuring quality in services often (but not always) involves trying to measure subjectives concept (cleanliness, friendliness, etc.). If you really want to measure these expectations (qualitative), try to transform them into measurable concepts (quantitative). For example if you want to know if a bill is readable enough, submit it to a group of users and prepare a list of questions about the bill. You can then evaluate the answers and determine a kind of readability score. But there will always be a subjective part when you need to take a decision based on the results (is 8/10 an acceptable score?)

But this is not particular to services, it corresponds to the tolerances in the industry.

Hope it helped

Jean-Philippe Hubin
 
#25
Kevin, I apligise for not responding. Marc is right somehow I missed this post.

I like juran because he provides something you can get your hands on from a technical standpoint; The handbook, guidance on planning, problem solving tools, & SPC tools. Everything just seems to flow together.
I like Crosby because of his common sense approach and his bold statement concerining the quest for "Zero Defects". Too this day I believe there are few people that understand this concept. I still have pictures from the 60's of various people I worked receiving Zero Defects awards. Although Juran and Deming talked about it in the 80's, Crosby was the first to pronounce public awareness of the need to meet customer requirements. He was also the first to place emphasis on "Quality Costs" as a method to building an effective system. His thinking was light years ahead of the much touted "six sigma".
 
M

Michael T

#26
Originally posted by Jim Wade
My 2 centsworth FWIW

All the gurus (see Note) have good stuff to say about 'quality' - lots to learn and to reflect on from them all.

BUT, as far as a definition of quality goes, the only one that matters is the one that any one organisation's management team agrees on (taking into account of course the wants and needs of all stakeholders). That definition is contained - for good or for bad - in the organization's objectives.

rgds

Jim

Note: a guru is the chief theoretician of a cult or sect - makes you think, doesn't it?
Jim,

Just a thought.... while an organization's operational definition of quality may be documented in the organization's objectives - I propose that the organization's true definition of quality is expressed in its culture.

Cheers!

Mike
 
D

D.Scott

#27
I'll put my head on the block

and say that if the definition of quality is to be dependant on the agreement of a corporate management team, we will never get to see the true definition of quality.

I contend the definition of quality has been and always will be determined by the customer. There can't be a definitive statement of quality because the perception of quality changes with every customer and with every mood swing. To meet the requirements of the customer can't stop with dimensional requirements on a print. It can't even be judged by compliance with every word in a contract.

Customer perception of quality is like Inspector 14 in reverse. "It won't say (quality) till I say it says (quality)." Does that say the customer is going to reject the parts? - No. The parts can meet all the requirements and work fine but to the customer, your quality can "suck". Sure, we can say "Hey! Those are good parts - show me where my quality is bad". Does it help? It is the customers perception that has the final say.

The customer may not always be right (which is something we have all learned), but the customer is always the customer. As the guy placing the order, the customer presides as judge and jury of quality.

Dave
 
#28
Customer defined quality

I fully agree that it is the customer that defines quality. I do not like tomatoes, so no matter how good "quality" the sandwich you think you made, if it has tomatoes on it I will not consider it satisfactory. (I know that sentence is linguistically incorrect, but I can’t figure out how to say it better).

On the other hand customer defined quality depends on a customer that is also truthful and does not play games with the supplier (like rejecting known good parts), or waiting until the sandwich is delivered to specify no tomatoes.
 
M

Michael T

#29
Perhaps....

Originally posted by Jim Wade
Interesting, Mike

Do you mean (for example and in ISO 9000 terms) in the behaviors that demonstrate the degree to which the organization's management has adopted the eight principles?

rgds Jim
I needed to change this a bit...

I don't like to look at things in terms of ISO anything. If it makes good business sense and is capable of enhancing customer satisfaction - sure. If it happens to fit within the ISO scheme... great. If it doesn't - that doesn't mean it won't be implemented.

So, how about this: The behaviors that demonstrate the degree to which management is dedicated to customer satisfaction and communicates this dedication to every employee in the shop, no matter what the function. This could be evidenced by every employee knowing and understanding how his/her job contributes to customer satisfaction and the ability of those employees to suggest (and after approval, implement) improvements in their respective processes that can contribute to enhanced customer satisfaction and ultimately better business practices. (Whew!!)

Frankly, whether this is in ISO terms or not is really immaterial. A company can do this and not be ISO registered and another company can be ISO registered and not doing this. Which one do you think will be more successful?

Now... to really throw a spanner in the works... :eek: What is the customer saying about the level of acceptable quality when they accept a product that has been deemed "defective" or "nonconforming", but accepted with (or without) concession? Is the accepted product now the quality standard, regardless of what the customer specs say? Your sandwich has tomato on it, but you're hungry enough to eat it anyway, but only pay $1.50 instead of $3.00 or you get a free soda.

Thoughts?

Cheers!!!

Mike
 
Last edited by a moderator:

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#30
Ok guys, here's my definition of quality. It's the one I give to all of our employees in orientation.

"Doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason"

In other words, the definition of quality is defined by the situation. There is no one definition, quality is a way of life (business) not a tangible commodity.

IMHO.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. BTW, they've finally beaten me down, I now admit my error Y'all is not the proper spellling of Ya'll.

Ya'll have a good day now, y'hear!
 
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