Operations Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 12

Managing Quality

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding how the customer views quality

Exploring the costs and payoffs of quality

Managing quality efforts

Building quality into the product design process

Using various tools to measure quality

In this chapter, we take an in-depth look at quality — how to define it, how to measure it, and how to determine the costs associated with it.

Deciding What Matters

When assessing quality, the first question you need to ask is, “What is a quality product?” Only your customer can answer this question because quality is what the customer says it is. A quality product means different things to different people, and expectations differ from product to product. When asking potential customers to define a quality car, for example, you get an array of answers, ranging from “A quality car starts each and every time, gets good gas mileage, and has a high safety record” to “A quality car goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds and has a sleek design.”