The Concept of Quality Flashcards
What is a quality product?
A quality product is one that meets the expectations of the businesses customers.
What does a business have to have in order to produce a quality product?
A clear understanding of customers expectations and consumer needs and wants.
How can a business identify customer expectations kin terms of quality?
Market research.
How can a business judge whether their product meets the level of quality that has been identified?
A business could measure the quality of its products by setting targets and then checking the extent to which it meets them.
How can a business check the extent to which a product meets their targets?
1) Questioning customers: Customer feedback is increasingly gathered through websites and social media as it is a quick way to gather information and the results can be collected and analysed electronically. Although some businesses may choose to do this in person
2) Asking employees: Many businesses set targets for their employees in terms of the percentage of faulty products arising at a stage of production.
3) Checking production and sales data: Businesses have a lot of data that can be analysed to measure quality. They may check production data to show the number of products that have to be repaired before or after being sold. They may measure the number of customers lost over a period of time.
What two main consequences is a business likely to face if they have poor quality?
1) High production cost:
- Poor quality may mean that customers have to be given replacements, causing a huge increase in the cost of production.
- Advising customers of faulty products and repairing those faults can be costly.
- Producing products that cannot be sold adds to cost without earning any income.
2) Loss of sales:
- Poor quality products or providing poor service to customers can lead to a loss of sales.
- If a business has a reputation for quality problems, it may not attract sufficient numbers of new customers.
What is two ways of maintaining/ managing quality?
1) Quality control: The process of inspecting products and services to identify any faults, this can then be reworked to achieve the agreed quality standard.
2) Quality assurance: Is the process of checking the quality of a product at every stage of production. The most known method of this is total quality management.
What is TQM?
Totally quality management is an approach to quality in which everyone is focused on preventing errors and on ensuring each stage of the production process.
In TQM what is the next person an employee is passing the product to referred to as?
The next person is referred to as their customer.
What are the two types of customers in the TQM process?
1) Internal customers.
2) External customers.
What is an internal customer?
Each person, department or section that is next in line in the production process is viewed as an internal customer. At each stage of production process the product the product supplied to the internal customer must meet the agreed standards. Employees ‘receiving’ the product must check this is the case. This includes checking the goods and services bought from suppliers meet the agreed standards.
What are the advantages of TQM?
1) Results in fewer defective products,
2) Reduces waste.
3) Reduces costs.
4) Increases customer satisfaction.
5) May increase employee motivation as they get more responsibilities.
What are the costs of maintaining quality?
1) Inspection costs: When employees are inspecting the work of others, they are not engaged in producing goods or services.
2) Staff training: Employees may need training to engage in quality inspections. Training can be expensive and takes employees away from producing goods and services.
3) Product recalls: Recalling products because of faults can be costly as repairs are normally provided free of charge. Profits may be reduced.
What are the benefits of maintaining quality?
1) Additional sales/ customers: A business is much more likely to keep existing customers, and to attract new ones, if it maintains quality.
2) Good image/ reputation:
A business is likely to benefit from an enhanced reputation if it maintains quality. This should increase sales.
3) Higher prices: A business that has a reputation for maintaining quality may be able to charge higher prices for it products. Profits may rise as a result.
How can a businesses growth negatively impact its quality?
1) New employees may lack the skills needed to produce consistently to agreed standards.
2) New products may initially cause problems with quality, due to unfamiliar production methods.
3) Some businesses grow through franchising, but there is a risk that new franchises will not meet the agreed quality standards of the business.
4) Another option for businesses it outsourcing, however, there may be a risk of quality standards not being met by outsourcing company.
