Quality Flashcards
What are the advantages of having a quality policy?
Allows premium pricing.
It may attract good staff.
Avoids costly complaints.
A quality award, such as Which?, should help improve the image of the business.
Gives a USP if others don’t have a quality policy.
What are the disadvantages of having a quality policy?
It requires money to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the quality expected.
If the business doesn’t reach the high standards expected they may receive bad PR.
Can put a lot of pressure onto workers, and can demotivate staff.
Takes focus away from day to day running.
What is quality control?
A process designed to detect and removed products which fall below the predetermined targets. This is normally carried out by specially trained staff who inspect and test products.
What are the advantages of quality control?
It should reduce the chance of faulty products.
Identifies areas of production which do not meet requirements.
What are the disadvantages of quality control?
Workers may become detached from the production process as they are not responsible for assessing their own work.
If products are rejected at the end of the production cycle it can be costly.
What is quality assurance?
Quality assurance is that products are right first time, here are zero defects and self inspection.
What are the advantages of quality assurance?
Costs are reduced because there is less wastage and reworking faulty products as the products are checked at every stage.
It can help improve worker motivation as workers have more ownership and recognition for their work
It can help break down ‘us and them’ barriers between workers and managers.
What are the disadvantages of quality assurance?
It is costly for a business to ensure quality assurance.
The reputation is at risk if the business does not achieve its high expectations.
Customers tend to over-estimate the level of quality actually provided.
What is ISO 9000?
One of the best known certification of quality management within the country. It’s supporters believe that it ensures standards that can be relied on by customers, although it does not guarantee that the product will be of high quality.
What are the advantages of becoming ISO 9000 certified?
Indicate to customers that products are of consistent high quality.
Justifies prices if a business is charging high.
Some retailers will only deal with ISO 9000 so a business may need this to supply retailers.
Source of competitive advantage.
Should enable savings and also less returns of faulty products.
What are the disadvantages of becoming ISO 9000 certified?
Can be expensive to achieve in terms of time and paperwork involved and may involve finding new suppliers.
Involves considering target setting and quantitative analysis so can be de motivating for employees especially with more paperwork.
May slow production process as more procedures have to be followed and data analysed.
What are the advantages of TQM?
Cost reduction. When applied over time TQM can reduce costs throughout an organisation, there can be increase in profits.
Customer satisfaction since the company has better products and services, so there should be fewer complaints.
Defect reduction. TQM has a strong emphasis on improving quality within a process, rather than inspecting quality into a process.
You can charge higher prices.
What are the disadvantages of TQM?
Involves a significant training period for those employees involved in it, this can have negative short term effects on costs
Costly and time consuming.
It can generate an adverse reaction from those employees who prefer the current system, or who feel that they may lose their jobs because of it.
What is TQM?
Everyone involved
Right first time.
Lean production - reduced costs me improves efficiency.
