Concept of Quality

Concept of Quality

Quality of a company can be rightly called as the heart of the company and its assurance as life line. Quality control may be defined as the systematic control of all the variables influencing the quality of the final product.

·               Joseph M. Juran defines Quality as the fitness for use or purpose.

·               W.Edwards also describes Quality as predictable degree of uniformity and dependability at low cost and suited to market.

·               The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy or implied needs of customers is the definition of quality as stated by ISO 9000.

Quality assurance means the degree to which the product actually confirms to the design specification which means manufacturing specifications of the product. This involves appearance, life, safety maintenance and other features of the product. Uniformity and acceptable quality of a product predicts the quality assurance of the product.

These two concepts of quality control and quality assurance lay a foundation for the development of the company. To a lay man, quality is proper use of the product till its lifetime as stated by the company.

Total Quality Management commonly known as TQM is also called Total Quality Improvement or Total Quality Control. This process starts from selection of raw materials which also includes safety measures and finally evaluation, packing and despatch.

Better quality gives better productivity. So the entrepreneurs have to devote their time for research and development. The analysis made for external and internal environment together is called SWOT analysis. It refers to identifying of Strengths and Weaknesses of the Organisation and Opportunities and Threats of the environment.

Techniques and Benefits of Quality Control

There are two techniques of quality control and assurance. They are inspection and statistical quality control.

Inspection implies comparing quality characteristic of a product with predetermined standards or 1accepted specifications of quality. It is concerned with quality of design. It is a verification covered out after the product in manufactured. It ensures the standard of a product to be supplied to the customers.

Statistical Quality Control regulates the process of manufacturing to take corrective action for producing standard products. It is concerned with quality of conformance. It is defined as the technique of applying statistical methods based up the mathematical theory of probability to quality control problems. It is done with the purpose of establishing quality standards and maintaining adherence to those standards in the most economical manner.

Following are the benefits of quality control;

·               It minimises the wastage and scrap

·               Increases the process efficiency

·               Reduces labour cost

·               Improves the quality of the product and services

·               Improves the sales turnover

·               Increases customer satisfaction

·               Reduces inspection cost and customer complaints

·               Improves the operating efficiency of quality consciousness

·               Conserves manpower resources

·               Determines prices at competitive level and increases the profit.