Operations

Quality

• Quality is a way of a businesses ensuring that their customers receive the highest standard products
• If a product isn't of good quality then....
• It can lead to customers returning the product leading to a loss in sales
• Extremely low products will receive bad PR and create a bad reputation
• High quality products can result in a good reputation
• Customers will pay higher prices for the goods, therefore increasing profits
• High quality will attract high quality staff

There are 8 methods to ensure quality

• Quality Control
• Quality Assurance
• Quality Improvement
• Quality Circles
• Quality standards and symbols
• Benchmarking
• Quality Management
• Mystery Shoppers

Quality Control

• Quality Control is the method of inspecting the quality of raw materials at the end of the production stage.

Quality Assurance

• Is the method of prevention. The quality of the product is checked at every stage in production rather than at the end.
• Advantages
• Less wastage, therefore decreasing costs
• It is easy to identify where there is a fault in the production line
• Disadvantages
• It is a timely process as each stage needs to be inspected adding time to production
• Increases the production cost as managers need to be paid wages.

Quality Improvement

• Is the process of continuing to improve the quality even if the objectives have been met. Everyone needs to be committed to continually improving.
• Advantages
• Stay ahead of competitors
• React quickly to changing external factors
• Disadvantages
• Staff feel under pressure to be continually improving
• High staff development costs

Quality Circles

• Is a group of employees who meet with a line manager to discuss the problems with the production line and how these problems can be solved. Feedback is returned to senior management and may be implemented.
• Advantages
• Employees are motivated as they feel as if they are involved in decision making
• Senior managers get good quality feedback as the employees spend a lot of time and will know it well.
• Disadvantages
• Happens during paid company time, therefore production time is lost.
• Employees encouraged to join from training, costing the business even more money

Quality Standards and Symbols

• A method of proving that a product meets an agreed industry standard.
• Advantages
• Customers can feel confident in their purchase
• Used a promotional tool to give a competitive edge
• Higher prices can be charged as product is of high quality