Quality dimensions:
1. Customer satisfaction
2. Employee involvement
3. Continuous improvement in performance
Customer Satisfaction
1. Conformance to Specifications – process performance standards; relates to consistent quality, on-time delivery, or delivery speed
2. Value – how well a service or product serves its intended purpose at price customers are willing to pay, relies on customer’s expectations before purchasing it
3. Fitness for use – when assessing how well a service or product performs its intended purpose, customers may consider convenience of service, mechanical features of a product, appearance, style, durability, reliability, craftsmanship, etc.
4. Support – service or product support, often just as important as product/service itself
5. Psychological impressions – product (atmosphere, image, or aesthetics), service (nicely dressed, courteous, friendliness, etc.)
Employee Involvement
Quality at the source – philosophy whereby defects are caught and corrected where they are created
Teams – small groups with common purpose, set own performance goals and approaches
Employee empowerment – approach to teamwork that moves responsibility for decisions further down the organization chart to the level of the employee actually doing the job
Continuous Improvement
Management’s view of performance standards of the organization
The way management views the contribution and role of its workforce (employee involvement and team efforts are the key to improvement)
Key Elements of TQM:
Quality is defined by customer
Employee involvement
Continuous improvement
Prevention, not inspection
Drive out variability in process control (SPC)
PDCA Cycle
Representation of continuous improvement
Plan, Do, Check, Act
Six Sigma Improvement Model (DMAIC)
“PDCA cycle on steroids”
More precise
Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control
Define – customer