CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION TO QUALITY

The History and Importance of Quality

Quality assurance refers to any planned and systematic activity directed toward providing consumers with products (goods and
services) of appropriate quality, along with the confidence that products meet consumers’ requirements.

The Age of Craftsmanship

During the Middle Ages in Europe, the skilled craftsperson served both as manufacturer and inspector. “Manufacturers” who dealt
directly with the customer took considerable pride in workmanship. Craft guilds, consisting of masters, journeymen, and apprentices,
emerged to ensure that craftspeople were adequately trained. Quality assurance was informal; every effort was made to ensure that
quality was built into the final product by the people who produced it.

The Early Twentieth Century

In the early 1900s the work of Frederick W. Taylor, often called the “father of scientific management,” led to a new philosophy of
production. Taylor’s philosophy was to separate the planning function from the execution function. Managers and engineers were
given the task of planning; supervisors and workers took on the task of execution.

Post-World War II
After the war, during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the shortage of civilian goods in the United States made production a top priority.
In most companies, quality remained the province of the specialist

The U.S. “Quality Revolution”

The decade of the 1980s was a period of remarkable change and growing awareness of quality by consumers, industry, and
government. During the 1950s and 1960s, when “made in Japan” was associated with inferior products, U.S. consumers purchased
domestic goods and accepted their quality without question. During the 1970s, however, increased global competition and the
appearance of higher-quality foreign products on the market led U.S. consumers to consider their purchasing decisions more carefully.

Early Successes
As a business and industry began to focus on quality, the government recognized how critical quality is to the nation’s economic
health. In 1984 the U.S. government designated October as National Quality Month.

From Product Quality to Total Quality Management

Although quality initiatives focused initially on reducing defects and errors in products and services through the use of measurement,
statistics, and other problem-solving tools, organizations began to recognize that lasting improvement could not be accomplished
without significant attention to the quality of the management practices used on a daily basis. Many began to use the term Big Q to
contrast the difference between managing for quality in all organizational processes as opposed to focusing solely on manufacturing
quality (Little Q). As organizations began to integrate quality principles into their management systems, the notion of total quality
management, or TQM, became popular. Rather than a narrow engineering – or production-based technical discipline, quality took on
a new role that permeated every aspect of running an organization.

Performance Excellence
As TQM change the way that organizations thought about customers, human resources, and manufacturing and service processes,
many top executives began to recognize that all fundamental business activities – such as the role of leadership in guiding an
organization, how an organization creates strategic plans for the future, how data and information are used to make business decisions,
and so on – needed to be aligned with quality principles.

Current and Future Challenges

The real challenge today is to ensure that managers continue to apply the basic principles on which quality management and
performance excellence are based.

In 2005 ASQ identified six key forces that will influence the future of quality.
1. Globalization: Organizations will be shaped by the fluidity of the Internet, unencumbered by legacy infrastructures and
impacted by shifting trade politics.
2. Innovation/creativity/change: Design quality and innovation will become increasingly significant to deal with faster rates of
change, shorter life cycles, and rising consumer sophistication.
3. Outsourcing: Work will become increasingly independent of place and space. Quality will extend increasingly into global
supplier networks.
4. Consumer sophistication: The high expectations of today’s consumers will continue to rise, encompassing product quality,
seamless delivery, ever shorter life cycles and fresh features.

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 5. Value creation: Determining the value proposition of any product, service, or business will require clarity and definition
from the stakeholder’s viewpoint.
6. Changes in quality: Quality must evolve from a process model to a systems approach. Quality will move business strategies
and actions through people.

DEFINING QUALITY
Quality can be a confusing concept, partly because people view quality in relation to differing criteria based on their individual roles
in the production-marketing value chain.
Eastern United States to define quality produced several dozen different responses, including the following:
1. Perfection
2. Consistency
3. Eliminating waste
4. Speed of delivery
5. Compliance with policies and procedures
6. Providing a good, usable product
7. Doing it right the first time
8. Delighting or pleasing customers
9. Total customer service and satisfaction

Product-Based Perspective
Another definition of quality is that it is a function of a specific, measurable variable and that differences in quality reflect differences
in quantity of some product attribute, such as in the number of stitches per inch on a shirt or in the number of cylinders in an engine.
This assessment implies that higher levels or amounts of product characteristics are equivalent to higher quality.

User-Based Perspective
A third definition of quality is based on the presumption that quality is determined by what a customer wants. Individuals have
different wants and needs and, hence, different quality standards, which leads to a user-based definition: Quality is defined as a fitness
for intended use, or how well the product performs its intended function.

Value-Based Perspective
A fourth approach to defining quality is based on value-that is, the relationship of usefulness or satisfaction to price. From this
perspective, a quality product is one that is as useful as competing products and is sold at a lower price, or one that offers greater
usefulness or satisfaction at a comparable price.

Manufacturing-Based Perspective
A fifth view of quality is manufacturing based and defines quality as the desirable outcome of engineering and manufacturing practice,
or conformance to specifications. Specifications are targets and tolerances determined by designers of products and services.

Customer-Driven Quality
Quality is meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

QUALITY AS A MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

Total Quality (TQ) is a people-focused management system that aims at continual increase in customer satisfaction at continually
lower real cost. TQ is a total system approach (not a separate area or program) and an integral part of high-level strategy; it works
horizontally across functions and departments, involves all employees top to bottom, and extends backward and forward to include
the supply chain and the customer chain. TQ stresses learning and adaptation to continual change as keys to organizational success.

Principles of Total Quality

Whatever the language, total quality is based on three fundamental principles:
1. A focus on customers and stakeholders.
2. Participation and teamwork by everyone in the organization.
3. A process focus supported by continuous improvement and learning.

Customer and Stakeholder Focus the customer is the principal judge of quality.
Participation and Teamwork Joseph Juran credited Japanese managers; full use of the knowledge and creativity of the entire
workforce as one of the reasons for Japan’s rapid quality achievements.

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Process Focus and Continuous Improvement the traditional way of viewing an organization is by surveying the vertical dimension
– by keeping an eye on an organization chart. However, work gets done (or fails to get done) horizontally or cross-functionally, not
hierarchically.
Continuous improvement refers to both incremental changes, which are small and gradual, and breakthrough, or large and rapid,
improvement.

Infrastructure, Practices, and Tools

Infrastructure refers to the basic management systems necessary to function effectively and carry out the principles of TQ. It includes
the following elements:
1. Customer relationship management
2. Leadership and strategic planning.
3. Human resources management
4. Process management
5. Information and knowledge management

Practices are those activities that occur within each element of the infrastructure to achieve high performance objectives.
Tools include a wide variety of graphical and statistical methods to plan work activities, collect data, analyses results, monitor
progress, and solve problems.
Customer Relationship Management Understanding customer needs, both current and future, and keeping pace with changing
markets require effective strategies for listening to and learning from customers.
Leadership and Strategic Planning the success of any organization depends on the performance of the workers at the bottom of the
pyramid.
Human Resource Management Meeting the company’s quality and performance goals requires a fully committed, well-trained, and
involved workforce.
Process Management involves the design of processes to develop and deliver products and services that meet the needs of customers,
daily control so that they perform as required, and their continual improvement.
Information and Knowledge Management Modern business depend on data and information to support performance measurement,
management, and improvement.

QUALITY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Competitive advantage denotes a firm’s ability to achieve market superiority.
1. It is driven by customer wants and needs.
2. It makes a significant contribution to the success of the business.
3. It matches the organization’s unique resources with opportunities in the environment.
4. It is durable and lasting and difficult for competitors to copy.
5. It provides a basis for further improvement
6. It provides direction and motivation to the entire organization

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