Quality Concepts:

Quality is perceived differently by different people. Yet, everyone understands what is meant
by quality. In a manufactured product, the customer as a user recognizes the quality of fit,
finish, appearance, function, and performance. The quality of service may be rated based on
the degree of satisfaction by the customer receiving the service. The relevant dictionary
meaning of quality is the degree of excellence.
Quality is the degree to which performance meets expectations.
The degree to which something meets or exceeds the expectations of its consumers.
The word quality is often used indiscriminately for many different meanings. Quality can be
defined as fitness for use, customer satisfaction, doing things right the first time, or zero
defects. These definitions are acceptable because quality can refer to degrees of excellence.
Websters dictionary defines quality as an inherent characteristic, property or attribute.
In a manufacturing or service environment, there are two major categories of quality: quality of
design and quality of conformance. A poorly designed product will not function properly
regardless of how well it meets its specifications. Conversely, a product that does not conform
to excellent design specifications will not properly perform its intended function.

Quality System:
A quality system is a mechanism that coordinates and maintains the activities needed to ensure
that the characteristics of products, processes or services are within certain bounds. A quality
system involves every part of an organization that directly or indirectly affects these activities.
Typically, the quality system is documented in a quality manual and in the associated
documents that specify procedures and standards.
Basic Elements in a Quality System:
There are three basic elements in a quality system:

Quality Management
Quality Control
Quality Assurance.

Quality Management: Quality management is the means of implementing and carrying out
quality policy. They perform goal planning and manage quality control and quality assurance
activities. Quality management is responsible for seeing that all quality goals and objectives are
implemented and that corrective actions have been achieved. They periodically review the
quality system to ensure effectiveness and to identify and review any deficiencies.

Quality Control: The term quality control describes a variety of activities. It encompasses all
techniques and activities of an organization that continuously monitor and improve the
conformance of products, processes or services to specifications. Quality control may also
include the review of processes and specifications and make recommendations for their
improvement. Quality control aims to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance by
identifying and helping to eliminate or at least narrow the sources of variation. Quality control
has the same meaning as variation control of product characteristics.
The objective of a quality control program is to define a system in which products meet design
requirements and checks and feedback for corrective actions and process improvements.
Quality control activities should also include the selecting and rating of suppliers to ensure that
purchased products meet quality requirements.
Quality Assurance: The term quality assurance describes all the planned and systematic actions
necessary to assure that a product or service will satisfy the specified requirements. Usually this
takes the form of an independent final inspection. The distinction between quality control and
quality assurance is stated in an ANSI/ASQ standard: Quality control has to do with making
quality what it should be, and quality assurance has to do with making sure quality is what it
should be. The quality assurance function should represent the customer and be independent
of the quality control function, which is an integral part of the manufacturing operation.

Differences between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Quality Assurance is process oriented and focuses on defect prevention, while quality
control is product oriented and focuses on defect identification.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

A core definition of total quality management (TQM) describes a management approach to
longterm success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an
organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which
they work. The methods for implementing this approach come from the teachings of such
quality leaders as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru
Ishikawa, and Joseph M. Juran.

The five aspects of Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management, a management concept popularized by W.E. Deming in Japan in the
1940s, reinforces the importance of superior quality within projects of any size or type and has
been making a bit of resurgence since its most recent peak during the 1980s. For a TQM
program to be successful, five major things must be in place within an organization. They are:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Continuous improvement
Customer satisfaction
Managerial involvement
Measurability; the ability to accurately measure and record quality and defects
Organizational support for total quality

Through continuous improvement, production cycles are short and iterative; this allows for
fixes and enhancements to be made almost immediately on the spot. Customer satisfaction is
also necessary for a TQM program to work - obviously, it is not enough to simply improve
processes to the point where errors are at an absolute minimum; an organization looking to
refine its processes must be aware of the needs of its customers and tie those needs into the
refactoring process.
Additionally, managerial involvement and an overall support system for TQM are required for
the program to be successful. It is not enough to have only the front-line workers be
knowledgeable in the area of total quality management - everyone within the organization
must be involved in an implementation of this magnitude.
Finally, there must also be an organizational support system in place for the program to work.
That is, there must be a linkage between the TQM program and the financial, strategic, and the
human resources aspects of the organization (and the appropriate senior-management buy-in)
in order for an organization to truly reap the rewards of total quality management.