NATIONAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ARTS

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Department

Fairview, Quezon City

LECTURE NOTES NO. 3

Subject Code: TQM Description: TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT Term: Second Semester
Period: Preliminary Period Academic Year:2020 - 2021 Prepared by: Joel R. Felizardo

QUALITY IN DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

1. Transcendent (Judgmental) Perspective
When the quality is defined as the goodness of a product, this referred to transcendent or judgmental
perspective of quality. Transcend means to rise above or extend notably ordinary limits. In this sense, quality
is both absolute and universally recognizable, a mark of uncompromising standards and high achievement.
From this perspective quality cannot be defined precisely – you just know it when you see it. It is often loosely
related to the aesthetics characteristics of products that are promoted by marketing and advertising.
Excellence is abstract and subjective, and standards of excellence may vary considerably among individuals.
Hence, the transcendent definition is of little practical value to managers. It does not provide a means by
which quality can be measured or assessed as basis for practical business decisions.
2. Product Perspective
This perspective is related to the quantity of some product attribute, such as the thread of a shirt of bed sheet,
or the number of different features in an automobile or a cellphone. This assessment implies that large
numbers of product attributes are equivalent to higher quality, so designers often try to incorporate more
features into products, whether the customers want them or not. As with the transcendent notion of quality,
the assessment of products attributes may vary considerably among individuals. Thus, good marketing
research is needed to understand what features customers want in the product.
3. User Perspective
Individuals have different needs and wants, hence, different expectations of a product. This leads to a user-
based definition of quality – fitness for intended use, or how well the product performs its intended function.
For example, U.S. appliance company whose stoves and refrigerators were admired by the Japanese buyers.
Unfortunately, the smaller living quarters of the typical Japanese home lack enough space to accommodate the
U.S. models. Some could not even pass through the narrow doors of Japanese kitchens. Although the
product’s performance characteristics were high, the products were simply not fit for the use in Japan.
4. Value Perspective
This perspective deals with the relationship of product benefits to price. Consumers no longer buy solely on
the basis of price. They compare the quality of the total package of goods and services that a business offers –
sometimes called the “customer benefit package” – with price and competitive offerings. The customer benefit
package includes the physical product and its quality dimensions, presale support, such as the case of ordering,
rapid, on-time, and accurate delivery, and post-sale support, such as field service, warranties, and technical
support. If competitors offer better choices for similar price, consumers will rationally select the package with
the highest perceived quality. If the competitor offers the same quality package of goods and services at a
lower price, customers would generally choose the one having the lower price. From this perspective, a quality
product is the one that provides similar benefits as competing products at lower price, or one that offers
greater benefits at a comparable price. Example is the generic pharmaceuticals, which usually provide the
same medical benefits at a lower price.
5. Manufacturing Perspective
This perspective deals with conformance and specifications. Specifications are targets and tolerance
determined by designers of goods and services. Targets (formally called nominal specifications) are the ideal
values for which production is to strive; tolerances are necessary because it is impossible to meet targets all of
the time. For example, the Coca-Cola Company, quality “is about manufacturing a product that people can
depend on every time they reach for it.” Through its rigorous quality and packaging standards, Coca-Cola strives
to ensure that its products will taste the same anywhere in the world as consumer might buy them.
6. Customer Perspective
The American Society for Quality and American National Standard Institute standardized official definitions o
quality in 1978 as the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to
satisfy given needs. By the end of 1980s, many organizations had begun using a simpler, yet powerful,
customer-based definition of quality that remains popular today: meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
 To understand this definition, one must understand the meanings of customers. The external customers are
the ultimate purchaser of the product of services, the one who buys the product for personal use. However,
every employee in an organization has internal customers who receive goods and services from suppliers
within the organization. An assembly department for example, is an internal customer of the machining
department, and a person on an assembly line is an internal customer of the person who performs the previous
task. Most businesses consist of many such “chain of customers.” Thus, the job of any employee is to satisfy
the needs of their internal customers, or the entire system can fail.

Aspects of Quality
There are many aspects of quality in a business context, though primary is the idea the
business produces something, whether it be a physical good or a particular service. These goods and/or services
and how they are produced involve many types of processes, procedures, equipment, personnel, and investments,
which all fall under the quality umbrella. Key aspects of quality and how it's diffused throughout the business are
rooted in the concept of quality management:
1. Quality planning is implemented as a means of "developing the products, systems, and processes needed to
meet or exceed customer expectations." This includes defining who the customers are, determining their
needs, and developing the tools (systems, processes, etc.) needed to meet those needs.
2. Quality assurance is implemented as a means of providing enough confidence that business requirements and
goals (as outlined in quality planning) for a product and/or service will be fulfilled. This error prevention is done
through systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, and monitoring of processes.
3. Quality control (QC) is implemented as a means of fulfilling quality requirements, reviewing all factors involved
in production. The business confirms that the good or service produced meets organizational goals, often using
tools such as operational auditing and inspection. QC is focused on process output.
4. Quality improvement is implemented as a means of providing mechanisms for the evaluation and
improvement of processes, etc. in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility. This may be done
with noticeably significant changes or incrementally via continual improvement.
While quality management and its tenets are relatively recent phenomena, the idea of quality in business is not
new. In the early 1900s, pioneers such as Frederick Winslow Taylor and Henry Ford recognized the limitations of
the methods being used in mass production at the time and the subsequent varying quality of output,
implementing quality control, inspection, and standardization procedures in their work. Later in the twentieth
century, the likes of William Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran helped take quality to new heights, initially in
Japan and later (in the late '70s and early '80s) globally.
Customers recognize that quality is an important attribute in products and services, and suppliers recognize that
quality can be an important differentiator between their own offerings and those of competitors (the quality gap).
In the past two decades this quality gap has been gradually decreasing between competitive products and services.
This is partly due to the contracting (also called outsourcing) of manufacturing to countries like China and India, as
well internationalization of trade and competition. These countries, among many others, have raised their own
standards of quality in order to meet international standards and customer demands.  The ISO 9000 series of
standards are probably the best known international standards for quality management, though specialized
standards such as ISO 15189 (for medical laboratories) and ISO 14001 (for environmental management) also exist.