Defining “Quality” – the first challenge with setting up a Quality Management System

For most organizations and a few home buyers as well, the term Quality is an attractive word to throw around! It is often bandied about by sellers and buyers of goods and services without both parties having a clear idea about what they mean by it. Unsurprisingly, both sides of the business often carry different idea of the term “Quality” and that often leads to dissatisfaction of the customer on one hand and a puzzlement on the part of the seller. One reason for this situation is that various experts in the domain of Quality Management have proposed different definitions and meaning of the word. In addition, the concept itself has been continuously evolving. In order to reach a win-win situation in this context (a satisfied customer and a successful seller), it is essential that both sides have a clear understanding of what is meant by the term ‘Quality’!

The reason for this situation will be clear once we delve deeper to define the term. More than a dozen definitions exist, and we can broadly categorize these as under.

Transcendental: According to the transcendent approach, quality is synonymous with innate excellence, absolute and universally recognizable: “You will know it when you see it”. This is a philosophical approach to defining quality and has limited practical utility.

Product based approach: The focus in the product-based approach is on quality as a precise and measurable variable. Any differences that do occur reflect differences in the quantity of some ingredient or attribute possessed by a product.

User based approach: This approach starts from the premise that quality “lies in the eyes of the beholder”. Consumers have specific wants or needs and those products that best meet the preferences of the consumers are those that they view as having the highest quality.

Manufacturing based approach: As the name suggests, this approach focuses on internal processes, from a manufacturing/production view point and quality is deemed to mean conformance to specifications. Products are designed and manufactured to predetermined specifications. This approach may have difficulty when applied to services.

Value based approach: Unlike all other approaches in which quality is unrelated to the selling price, the value-based approach considers quality to be relative to the selling price. As per this approach, the buyer’s perception about quality depends upon a mental trade-off between the benefits achieved by the buyer relative to the price paid for the product or the service.

The situation has an uncanny resemblance to the famous story about 4 blind men and their interpretation of an elephant!