strategies related to quality

Question 1

what is quality

Answer 1

Quality is concerned with meeting customer expectations or standards. A quality product should be reliable, easy to use, well designed and without flaws. The operations manager is responsible for ensuring quality is maintained in the operations system.

Question 2

what is quality control

Answer 2

quality control involves the use of a series of checks at different stages of the production process to ensure that goods and services meet predetermined standards.

Question 3

quality control advantages

Answer 3

-prevents poor quality goods or services reaching the consumer.

Question 4

quality control disadvantages

Answer 4

• is very wasteful as the rejected products involve raw materials, time and processes which are not sold to the customer.
• doesn’t always isolate the problem
• unless quality control is performed on every product some inferior goods may slip through

Question 5

what is quality assurance

Answer 5

quality assurance is a system where the business meets a set of predetermined quality standards often set by an independent body such as the international organisation for standardisation (ISO)

Question 6

Quality assurance advantages

Answer 6

• Great for marketing
• gives a competitive advantage in domestic and global markets
• reduces wastage as the proactive focus aims to stop errors occurring before the good or service is produced

Question 7

quality assurance disadvantages

Answer 7

• can be expensive to have the certification

- can take additional time preparing the documents and processes prior to the inspection.

Question 8

what is total quality management

Answer 8

is a system of management based on the principal that every member of staff must be committed to maintaining high standards of work in every aspect of a business operations.

Question 9

quality management advantages

Answer 9

• zero defects
• greatly reduced wastage
• higher customer satisfaction

Question 10

quality management disadvantages

Answer 10

-requires a whole business cultural shrift which can be time consuming and expensive to implement

Question 11

Compare ‘quality control’ and ‘quality assurance

Answer 11

Both quality control and quality assurance aim to improve quality standards by checking products against predetermined standards and rejecting goods or services that fail to meet these standards.
However, whilst quality control is a reactive strategy which employs a “check and reject” principle whereby goods are wasted if they fail to meet the standards, quality assurance is more of a proactive strategy. This involves inviting in external assessors to evaluate production processes against predetermined standards prior to manufacture. In this way the intention is to reduce the level of wastage, and prevent rather than respond to quality defects.

Question 12

Identify three key principles of TQM.

Answer 12

1. Continuous improvement
2. Customer focus
3. Employee participation.