Chapter 17 Quality Management Quality – the operations' view, the customer's view (p. 498)+ Figure 17.3 (p. 498) • Reconciling the operation's and customer's views of quality (pp.498-499) • Diagnosing quality problems, page 501 • Conformance to specification (pp.502-508)

Quality – the operations' view, the customer's view, pp.498 Quality-Operations view Quality is consistent conformance to customers expectations. Conformance implies the need to meet clear specification( manufacturing approach). consistent means conformance to specification is not on ad hoc basis.

Quality – customers view Every individual customers have different expectations from a product. Individual knowledge and history shapes its expectations. Quality should be understood from customers view point because the to the customer quality of a product or service is whatever he/she perceive it to be. E.g some perceive cars as a status symbol; another may perceive it as an expensive mean of getting home from work. example of P-498

Perceived quality is governed by the gap between customers’ expectations and their perceptions of the product or service Fig 17.3-Pecieved quality is governed by the magnitude and direction of the gap between customers expectations and their perceptions of the product/service Customers’ expectations for the product or service Customers’ perceptions of the product or service Gap Customers’ expectations for the product or service Customers’ perceptions of the product or service Customers’ expectations for the product or service Customers’ perceptions of the product or service Gap Expectations > perceptions Expectations = perceptions Expectations < perceptions So the continuum between quality being perceived as poor through to it being perceived as good is primarily a function of the nature and extent of any gaps between customers’ expectations and their perceptions. The implication of this is that in order to manage customers’ perceived quality levels, both their expectations and their perceptions must be managed. Perceived quality is poor Perceived quality is good Perceived quality is acceptable

Diagnosing quality problems, page 501 Gap 1:- the Gap between customers specification and operations specification.  between what customers expect and what managers think they expect –Clearly survey research is a key way to narrow this gap. Gap 2:- the Gap between the concept specification. Gap 3:- the gap between the quality specification and actual quality Gap 4:- The actual quality gap and communicated image gap.

A ‘Gap’ model of Quality The customer’s domain Previous Experience Word of mouth communications Image of product or service Gap 4 Customers’ expectations concerning a product or service Customers’ perceptions concerning the product or service Gap ? Customers’ own specification of quality The actual product or service Gap 1 The operation’s domain Finally, the organization may be influencing the customers’ image of the product or service, for example through its advertising or other promotional activity, in such a way as to conflict with its actual reality. This is called gap 4. Organization’s specification of quality Gap 3 Management’s concept of the product or service Gap 2

Conformance to Specification – P.502 - 508 Conformance to specification means producing a product or providing a service to its design specification. It is the responsibility of operation management to make to the customer perception of quality.. It can be achieved by six sequential steps. Define the quality characteristics of product/service Decide how to measure each quality characteristics Set the quality standards fro each quality characteristics Control the quality again these standards Find and correct use of poor quality Continue to make improvement.

1. Define Quality characteristics:- the consequences of quality planning and control of the design are called quality characteristics. Such as functionality, appearance, reliability, durability, recovery and contact. (Table 17.1) 2. How to measure each characteristics:- the defined quality characteristics should be measureable and controllable such as in case of appearance its hard to define so it needs to break down as “ color match” surface finish” no of visible scratches. For example the courtesy of airline staff is hard to quantify so airlines place a great deal of importance to ensure courtesy in their staff. There are two types to describe the quality characteristics as variable( it can be measures on continuous variable scale e.g length, diameter, weight or time) and attributes ( it can be assed by judgment e.g right /wrong, good/fair/poor). (Table 17.2) 3. Set quality standards:- after identifications of quality characteristics it can be measured against the quality standards. The quality standards is the level of quality which defines the boundaries between acceptable or not acceptable. 4. Control quality against those standards:- after setting the standards operations needs to check product/service to to those standards. It needs three important decisions. First, where in operations they should check that it is confirming to standards. Second, should they check every product/service or take a sample Third, how should the check be performed. 5 and 6. Find and correct the causes of poor quality and continue to make improvements.