TQM
Product Quality
It is now widely believed by those in the industry that quality is meeting the needs of the customer. The focus on the customer is important. It is the customer that defines quality expectations in the market place.
For suppliers of companies making consumer products, this has severe implications. More than ever before, suppliers must thoroughly understand the application of their product. Even more important, they must deal with how their portion fits in with the general strategy of getting customer satisfaction. This takes a close working relationship, which may be described as a partnership among companies. The success of a supplier really depends on how the products entering the consumer market place are perceived by the final customer. If there is wide acceptance, the supplier will likely prosper. If not the survival may be questionable.
According to the American Society for Quality Control, Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy given needs. The definition implies that the needs of the customer are the drivers of quality. It also implies that satisfaction of those needs really determines whether quality is met.
Consumers for the most part, do not really care about satisfaction. They have their individual perceptions of what a product should be like. They evaluate whether quality has been met by how the product differs from what they think it should be like.
A way of understanding these perceptions is to consider that consumer may look at quality in four ways. These are, function, use feature, perception features and price.
Function relates to the ability of the product to do the job for which it was purchased. Using an auto, for example, one function is that it goes from starting point A to destination B whenever desired. Consumers are also concerned with how long it will do the function without failing. This is a measure of reliability or durability of the product.
Use features relate to how the consumer interfaces with the product. In a car,for example, this may be how comfortable the seats are and how accessible the controls are.
Perception features relate to the customer appeal, or how the consumer feels about the excitement of the product. For a car enthusiast, it may be that a vehicle has all the available technical advances.
Price is, in reality, a trade- off with the other ways a customer perceives quality.
It is the value the customer places on the product to determine whether a purchase is made.
