Assignment 1
KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, KUMASI.
COMMONWEALTH EXECUTIVE MASTERS IN BUSINESS / PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
CENTRE: TAKORADI
CEMBA 557: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
SOLUTION
Question 1
A. Quality in business has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it is also defined as fitness for purpose. Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the specification quality of a product/service, or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace. Producers might measure the conformance quality, or degree to which the product/service was produced correctly. Support personnel may measure quality in the degree that a product is reliable, maintainable, or sustainable. Simply put, a quality item (an item that has quality) has the ability to perform satisfactorily in service and is suitable for its intended purpose.
There are five aspects of quality in a business context:
Producing – providing something.
Checking – confirming that something has been done correctly.
Quality Control – controlling a process to ensure that the outcomes are predictable.
Quality Management – directing an organization so that it optimizes its performance through analysis and improvement.
Quality Assurance – obtaining confidence that a product or service will be satisfactory. (Normally performed by a purchaser)
Quality applied in these forms was mainly developed by the procurement directorates of NASA, the military and nuclear industries from the 1960s and this is why so much emphasis was placed on Quality Assurance. The original versions of Quality Management System Standards (eventually merged to ISO 9001) were designed to contract manufacturers to produce better products, consistently and were focused on Producing, Checking and Quality Control.
The subsequent move of the Quality sector towards management
COMMONWEALTH EXECUTIVE MASTERS IN BUSINESS / PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
CENTRE: TAKORADI
CEMBA 557: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
SOLUTION
Question 1
A. Quality in business has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it is also defined as fitness for purpose. Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the specification quality of a product/service, or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace. Producers might measure the conformance quality, or degree to which the product/service was produced correctly. Support personnel may measure quality in the degree that a product is reliable, maintainable, or sustainable. Simply put, a quality item (an item that has quality) has the ability to perform satisfactorily in service and is suitable for its intended purpose.
There are five aspects of quality in a business context:
Producing – providing something.
Checking – confirming that something has been done correctly.
Quality Control – controlling a process to ensure that the outcomes are predictable.
Quality Management – directing an organization so that it optimizes its performance through analysis and improvement.
Quality Assurance – obtaining confidence that a product or service will be satisfactory. (Normally performed by a purchaser)
Quality applied in these forms was mainly developed by the procurement directorates of NASA, the military and nuclear industries from the 1960s and this is why so much emphasis was placed on Quality Assurance. The original versions of Quality Management System Standards (eventually merged to ISO 9001) were designed to contract manufacturers to produce better products, consistently and were focused on Producing, Checking and Quality Control.
The subsequent move of the Quality sector towards management
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