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Introduction to Quality Planning

1.1 Quality Definitions

1.1.1 Meaning of Quality

Definition of Quality

Quality is a common word both in the workplace and at home, so it might be interesting to ask exactly what the word quality means. There are certainly numerous definitions of quality. Regarding this ambiguity, the American Society for Quality (ASQ) states that quality is "a subjective term for which each person or sector has its own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings: 1) the characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs; 2) a product or service free of deficiencies" (ASQ, n.d. a).

Several quality pioneers established the foundation of present quality definitions. For example, Dr. Joseph Juran viewed quality as a fitness for use and leading to customer satisfaction (ASQ n.d. a). Philip Crosby thought of quality as a conformance to requirements (Crosby 1979). Formally, ISO 9000:2015 defines quality as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements (ISO 2015).

While ambiguous on the surface, defining quality in a given professional field can be an intriguing exercise, which helps us think about its importance as a target, a process, and a system when applying quality principles and approaches to real-world situations. Here are several examples of quality definitions, each of which may reflect aspects to the different fields and view angles of quality practitioners:

"Fit for purpose while robust enough to uphold product/service integrity and value" (Glodowski 2019). This definition addresses the robustness to fit for purpose.

"Quality is the art of always pleasing the customer while ensuring your bottom line is met" (Toure 2019). This definition recognizes quality is the art of meeting a customer's need.

"Sincere and considerate actions taken to either fulfill or exceed user expectations" (Mori 2018). This definition focuses on implementation processes and actions.

"The required satisfaction provided by a good or service as expected or imagined by the customer" (Stevens 2018). This definition also touches on an important aspect of the perceived service of quality to customers.

Considering the many aspects of quality illustrated in just these four examples, one may find that it can be difficult to encompass the entirety of such a broad concept in a single sentence. To help with this, one may use a few keywords to understand the general meaning of quality when viewed in relation to industry, goods, and services:

• Quality is customer (or end-user) oriented.

• Quality is a distinctive characteristic or degree of excellence of something.

• Quality is adherence to specifications (or standards/regulations) by a product or service.

• Quality is a summary description of multiple dimensions and aspects.

Readers may have even more keywords to add to this list, simply based on their own experience and insights. In addition, these keywords may have different weights or significance when one addresses unique situations, products, or problems. While the definition of quality can be subjective to person and place, the broader concept is objective as a field of study, and based on the same basic truths about how quality can be defined.

Measurement of Quality

The aforementioned keywords, i.e. customer demands, design specifications, and quality dimensions, represent the references for quality measurement and analysis. As a foundation of quality management, quality measurement is an evaluation:

• Of a specific status or result from a product or service

• Of a process or system of processes involved with a product or service

The first action of a quality measurement process is to collect current data, shown in Figure 1.1. For example, the US Environemental Protection Agency (EPA) measures the quality of the air by collecting and analyzing the presence of specific compounds that cause pollution. Their measurement for reporting is the Air Quality Index (AQI) (EPA 2019). The AQI tells us how clean the air is, and what associated health effects might be a concern.

Figure 1.1 Quality measurement and analysis process.

For the quality of a product, measurement and analysis are based on that product's design specifications. For example, software development has several functional specifications, e.g. technical details, data manipulation, and processing efficiency. The requirements, test processes, and criteria are predefined as a guideline or standard. Also, since the quality of a product or service has multiple dimensions, so too must the corresponding measurements and analyses of that quality, which will be discussed in detail later.

For the quality of a manufacturing or service operation, one may collect process information and output in terms of adherence to standards, design specifications, etc. of that given operation. Measuring output is mainly for determining the status and results of an operation. Measuring the process itself can provide insight into understanding how the output of an operation is generated, thereby helping to find reasons why the output meets (or fails) the requirements of the given input. Therefore, it is often important to measure both process and output.

Quality measurement reports are normally presented in terms of well-defined indexes. For example, a quality indicator of healthcare quality is called the Patient Safety Indicator, which shows avoidable safety events that represent opportunities for improvement in the delivery of care (AHRQ n.d.). Another similar one is called the Prevention Quality Indicator, which is used to identify the conditions in which good outpatient care can potentially prevent the need for hospitalization. Quality indicators are field specific, and often have multiple ones for a product and service. For example, over 30 quality indicators were considered in blood establishments at the international level (Vuk 2012). In addition to direct measurements on a product, process, or service, the quality variance, or the differences between the individual measurements, can be used as an indicator as well.

1.1.2 End-customer Centricity

Internal Customer

A customer is an individual or business entity who receives and uses a product or service. A large or complex business operation has various units, so their working relationship of providing and receiving can be multifaceted, much like the network of a community. An example is shown in Figure 1.2. Suppliers provide parts and/or services to a product producer or service provider. The latter is the customer to the suppliers, while the producer/provider works with suppliers to provide a product or service to ultimate customers.

Figure 1.2 Supplier-producer/provider-customer relationship.

Inside an organization, there is also a customer-supplier relationship. An internal customer (or client) can be a person, operation, or group within an organization, who performs their jobs when receiving an output, part, and/or assistance from one or more internal persons, operations, or groups. For instance, in a surgical operating room, the ultimate customer is the patient, while the surgeons can be viewed as internal customers of the nurses and technicians who assist the surgeons.

Therefore, an operation in a business system can be viewed as the internal customer of all upstream or supporting operations, and at the same time is an internal supplier to downstream or other associated operations. If one analyzes the suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, and customers (SIPOC) of a business operation, they may know their relationships. Table 1.1 shows an example of a SIPOC analysis for vehicle manufacturing. In a SIPOC analysis, the suppliers and customers can be either internal or external.

Table 1.1 SIPOC of vehicle manufacturing operations.

The concept of an internal customer can be helpful to build an effective relationship between operations and teamwork for an organization's ultimate customers. In many cases, internal customers are less obvious than external customers because of management structure, lack of financial transaction, and/or complex organizational functions. For example, it can be difficult to define supplier-customer relationships for some departments in a matrix organization.

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