QUALITY PRODUCTION

Quality means to produce a good or service which meets customer expectations.

This means products have to be well designed, perform the function for which they were
intended, look good and be safe to use.
Business that fail to produce quality products are likely to lose out to competitors.
A business needs to try to ensure that all the products or services it sells are free of
faults or defects.
Benefits of quality production
Quality has the following benefits to a firm:
1. Customer loyalty – they return, make repeat purchases and recommend the
product or service to others.
2. Strong brand reputation for quality.
3. Fewer returns and replacements lead to reduced costs.
4. Lower unit costs because of less waste and rejected outputs
5. Fewer customer complaints and more satisfied customers.
6. Potentially higher selling prices
7. Higher quality gives a firm a competitive edge in the market
8. Enable a firm to comply with government legislation therefore prevent a firm to
pay fines and penalties associated with poor quality
Quality could be described as those features of a product or service that allow it to
satisfy customer’s wants. The features may include:
a) Good design – looks and style appear attractive
b) Good functionality – it does the job well
c) Reliable – level of breakdown or failure are minimal.
d) Durable – lasts as long as it should
e) Value for money
Ways of evaluating good quality
There are many ways of measuring and evaluating good quality of a product:
1. Defects rate – a high defects rate is a measure of poor quality.
2. Reliability – how often does something go wrong with the product, i.e. the average
life-span use, etc.
3. Customer satisfaction – To what extent are customers satisfied with the product or
service. This can be measured by customer research.
4. Number of times or incidences of customer making or reporting some complaints.
5. Customer loyalty as measured through percentage of repeat buying.

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Ways of evaluating poor quality:
1. Product fails as it exhibits frequent breakdown or unexpected wear and tear.
2. Product does not perform as promised (or what the customer thought was promised).
3. Poor instructions/directions of use making the product difficult or frustrating to use.
4. Poor response b customers to customer care services.
Costs of poor quality
Poor quality can lead to the following business costs:
1. Losing customers due to poor quality can be expensive as it may take a lot of
promotion to convince them to come back.
2. There are costs of re-working or re-marketing the product.
3. There are costs of replacements if the product is found to be faulty or refunds of
money to customers.
4. There are wasted materials as the materials used cannot be re-used in the same
production.
Start here.
Quality control
Quality control is the checking for the quality at the end of the production process, to
ensure that the product meets the set standards as required by quality control boards.
Objectives of quality control
The objectives are to make sure that products:
1. Satisfy consumers’ needs
2. Operate in the way they should
3. Can be produced cost effectively
4. Can be repaired easily
5. Conform to safety standards set down by legislation and independent bodies.
Quality control (traditional method)
1. The process begins with checking the inputs, i.e. the raw materials. Are they the right
quality, the right ones required in production and the right quantity? The method
checks the quality of completed products for faults.
2. Then inspection is done during work in progress if the expected output is being
achieved
3. Finally, the output is checked at the end of the production process to confirm
whether the output is what was expected.
4. Some businesses will do the first checking, second checking and third checking to
confirm that the product is good enough for marketing.

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Advantages of quality control
a. It tries to eliminate faults or errors before the customer receives the product or
service
b. It builds customer confidence in the product or service
c. It saves money as less rejects are recorded.

Disadvantages of quality control

a. Quality control may find the fault but may not be able to find out why the fault
occurred. This makes it difficult to remove the problem.
b. It increases costs if products have to be scrapped or reworked or service repeated.
c. Rejected products are costly to a firm because it has incurred the full cost of
production but cannot be sold to customers since manufacturers

QUALITY ASSURANCE
Quality assurance is the checking for the quality standards throughout the production
process of a good or service.
The business will make sure quality standards are set and then it will apply these quality
standards throughout the business.
The aim is to stop problems before they occur rather than finding them after they occur.
The purpose of quality assurance is to make sure that the customer is satisfied, with aim
of achieving greater sales, increased added value and increased profits.
To implement a quality assurance system, attention must be paid to the design of the
product, the components and materials used, delivery schedules, after-sales service and
quality control procedures.
Quality assurance also takes into account customers’ views in the production process.
Advantages of quality assurance
1. It tries to eliminate faults or errors before the customer receives the product or
service.
2. It ensures fewer customer complaints.
3. It reduces costs if products do not have to be scraped or re-worked or service
repeated.
4. Costs are reduced because there is less wastage and re-working of faulty products as
the product is checked at an early stage.
5. It can help improve worker motivation as workers have more ownership and
recognition for their worker (see Herzberg theories on motivation)

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Drawbacks of quality assurance
1. Expensive to train employees to check the product or service
2. Relies on employees following instructions of standards set

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM) is the continuous improvement of products and
processes by focusing on quality at each stage of production.
It tries to get it right first time and not have any defects. It involves all employees being
responsible for ensuring quality at all stages in the production process.
There is an emphasis on ensuring that the customer is always satisfied. The customer
can be other people or departments in the same business that you are completing with.
Not just the final customer.

Features of TQM
1. Quality chains – TQM are customer focused because they aim at responding to
changes in customers’ needs and expectations. Every worker in a business is like a
link in a chain and is both a customer and a supplier. A product can only be received
and passed on if it has reached specified quality standards.
2. Everyone is involved – TQM believes in teamwork as the most effective way of
solving problems. This is because teams have more skills, knowledge and
experience than a single person. Every department, activity and worker is organized
to take into account quality at all times.
3. Quality audits – Statistical data is used to monitor quality standards. These checks or
audits aim to reduce variability, which is the cause of most quality problems.
4. Zero defects – TQM systems adopt a zero defect policy. It aims at ensuring that
every product that is manufactured is free from defects.

Advantages of TQM
1. It helps to develop ways of measuring performance.
2. There will be reduced costs as products do not have to be scrapped or re-worked or
service repeated.
3. It helps a business to eliminate any kind of waste and inefficiencies.
4. The focus is on customer needs because it responds to changes in demand.
5. Quality of products is improved in all aspects of production or service.
6. It provides a basis of measuring performance of a business.

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 Disadvantages of TQM
1. The focus is on the processes not the product
2. It can only be effective if everyone is committed.
3. The business will incur very high training and implementation costs.
4. TQM might make a firm to be too bureaucratic (require many documents).

Factors Necessitating Quality Control

1. Increased competition has forced firms to improve quality. Consumers only buy
products of high quality.
2. Government legislation designed to protect consumers has forced firms to improve
quality. For example, the production of food products has to be carried out in a
hygienic environment and comply with health and safety legislation.
3. Faulty products are costly for a business. For poor quality products damages
business’ reputation. Poor quality is likely to result in lost customers.
Quality and competitive advantage
Competitive advantage is the ability of a firm to out-perform its competitors in terms of
quality, profitability, market share and growth.
Some businesses have a reputation for producing high quality products, for example
 Prada – An Italian luxury fashion house specializing in high quality leather
handbags, shoes, travel bags among other products
 Rolls Royce – A manufacturer of jet engines and Rolls Royce luxury cars.
 Rolex – Famous for its high quality luxury watches.
High quality products serve as a Unique Selling Point (USP). People are always ready to
pay a high price for quality products. This gives the firm a competitive advantage and
higher profit margin.
The following things can give a firm competitive advantage in product quality.
1. Greater efficiency
2. Financial strength
3. Superiority of the company’s products
4. A strong customer base
5. Research and development
6. Advanced Technology
7. Production competence

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Developing a reputation for quality and gaining competitive advantage in a market takes
time. A business needs to understand how customers view quality and adopt strategies
that meet customer expectations.

Quality Standards
If a customer wants to be sure that a product or service will meet particular standards,
then they can look for a quality mark associated with the product or service. Examples
are, The British Standards Institution – BSI (United Kingdom) and Kenya Bureau of
Standards – KEBS (Kenya). This are independent organizations that set quality
standards in industries.
Firms in UK that achieve and maintain a certain standard can carry the BSI kite mark.
The kite mark tells the customer that BSI quality standards are consistently achieved by
the business.
Ensuring a good customer service is also important to service sector businesses. By
having a good reputation and recommendations by satisfied customers, they will keep
repeat customers as well as gain new ones.
An example of internationally recognized standard is the ISO 9000 (International
Organization for Standardization) which grants businesses the right to use an ISO
number in its literature and advertising. Some of the basic requirements of certification
include:
a. A set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business.
b. Monitoring processes to ensure they are producing quality products.
c. Regularly reviewing the quality system, itself.
d. Ensuring continual improvement.

The benefits to a business of ISO certification are summarized below.

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