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What Is Quality?
Category: BusinessThere are lots of different ways to describe quality in fact people have written books or PhD thesis on the subject. Every person will probably have a slightly different opinion - “the best you can buy”, “consistent - the same every time you buy it”, “meets my specification”, “value for money” and so on. Basically “quality” is understanding what the customer wants in terms of products and service and then consistently giving them what they want. If you give your customers what they want at a price that makes you a profit, then you have a viable business!
Sounds easy, but then it becomes a bit more complicated, because as an organization you need to work out who your customers are. There may be a number of external “customers” in the supply chain for example, manufacturer, distribution company, retailer, wholesaler, consumer. Legislative bodies or assessment bodies are also external customers and their requirements need to be met. As well as external customers an organization has a series of internal customers each department in turn from goods inwards to production and dispatch as well as other services, administration, sales, marketing, human resources having a discrete set of requirements that it needs to have met.
Before a documented quality management system (QMS) is developed an organization must not only determine who their customers are, but also the aims and objectives of their organization i.e. what they are setting out to control with their QMS. Documented systems that are developed to cover issues such as quality assurance, human resources, health and safety and/or environmental issues are often called integrated management systems or IMS.
So where do you begin:
1) Know who your customers are:
2) Understand what they want from you:
3) Determine how you are going to meet their requirements;
4) Identify the management protocols that need to be in place to control the system;
5) Deliver what they want, when they want it and for a price that delivers a profit!
http://thehumanimprint.typepad.com/the_human_imprint/2007/08/what-is-quality.html
Tags: aims and objectives, distribution company, environmental issues, external customers, human resources, ims, internal customers, legislative bodies, management protocols, phd thesis, qms, quality assurance, quality management system, resources health, sales marketing, services administration, viable business, wholesaler, written books