QUALITY IN BUSINESS

DEFINITIONS OF QUALITY

• Meeting the needs and expectations of the customer.
• A measure of exellence or being free from defects.
• What the customer perceives as quality.

QUALITY CONTROL

• The process whereby an entity reviews the quality of a product.
• Aims to identify defects in finished product and then fix them.
• Assesses competence of workers: skills, knowledge, qualifications.
• Business's culture, motivation, team effort/spirit.
• Testing products/services to uncover defects

QUALITY ASSURANCE

• Aims to prevent defects in production processes.
• If defect is identified it can be swiftly dealt with.
• Increases effective production efficiency.
• Everyone involved in production is responsible.

SYSTEMS OF QUALITY ASSURANCE

• Processes to make sure you stick to you quality policy.
• Data management.
• Make and meet quality objectives. Maybe in business plan.
• Continual improvement processes.

DATA MANAGEMENT

• Security of data is of high quality on a machine.
• Easy to compare and share data.
• Data is consistent in format, wording, etc.
• Cost of software and hardware.
• Cost of training and employing specific staff.

QUALITY OBJECTIVES

• Emphasises what must be done in a priority order.
• Give each member something specific to achieve or work towards.
• Can put members under stress if objectives are too tight.
• Can be time consuming to organise.

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT PROCESS

• By listening to customer reviews and adapting to them,
• You improve you customer service and thus customer loyalty.
• Weeds out any regular defects or problems.
• Not all customer feedback is necessarily true.
• Takes attention away from well functioning parts of a business.