Broadly speaking Quality is the totality of attributes of a product or service, which bear upon its ability to satisfy, stated and implied needs of the customers.

S M M A Rezvi
M. Sc. Ag (Gold Medalist),ICAR-JRF, MBA, UGC-NET, CAIIB(I)

A customer here is any one who consumes the product or service in question. The customer may be a natural or legal person or a group of persons. The customer may be internal customer or external customer. For example, when you purchase bread in the morning you become external customer, for the bakery. But within that bakery the person who bakes the bread in the oven is an internal customer for the person who has molded the bread in its shape, who in turn is an internal customer to the person who has kneaded the flour and so on and so forth.

Customers approach a supplier only when they perceive a tension in their minds because of a gap between what they have and what they think they ought to have. We can call this state of tension in customers’ mind as their needs.

Needs may further be classified as stated needs and implied needs. Imagine the last time you purchased a packet of bread. Why did you purchase it? – Because, you wanted something to eat. You went to the shop to buy a (i) bread (ii) of desired size (iii) of the bakery of your choice, and you told the shopkeeper accordingly. You stated all these attributes clearly before the shopkeeper and thus these became your stated needs. You probably never told the shopkeeper that the bread should not be rotten, stale and stinking. But you meant that – without saying a word. This was yourimplied need. You walked back home with a certain mental picture of that bread associated with certain expectations. On consumption any one of the following happened:

(a) The bread matched your expectations

(b) The bread exceeded your expectations

(c) The bread failed your expectations

If the bread matched your expectations the tension in your mind got extinguished and your stated and implied needs were satisfied. You felt that the bread you purchased was of the desired Qualityand most probably the next morning you went to the same store for purchasing the same type of bread. If the bread failed your expectations the tension in your mind, which had driven you to the shop for buying the bread, remained in place or may be was heightened, and your needs or at least some of them remained unsatisfied. You rated the bread as Low Quality and probably never purchased the same bread from the same counter again.

If the bread exceeded your expectations you were definitely very happy and went again for the same bread as it was to your mind of Superb Quality, but remember this time you went with araised level of expectations for the same bread. If the bread you purchased this time did not meet the raised expectation level – though it exceeded the original level of your expectation that you had made the previous day – you probably rated it Low Quality this time. Consistency, therefore, is a key element in quality.

Who is the ultimate and final judge of quality? None but the customer! Because it is the customer whose needs both stated and implied must be fulfilled. No amount of technical expertise capital and other resources put into the production of a produce – goods or services, can make it of good quality if it does not meet the needs of the intended customers reasonably well. Thus it is imperative for any producer who wants to make her/his goods services of good quality to thoroughly understand, list and document the stated and implied needs of its intended customers.

Quality Management is thus a planned and systematic production process that provides confidence in a product’s suitability for its intended purpose. It is a set of activities intended to ensure that products (goods and/or services) satisfy customer needs in a systematic and reliable fashion.Quality Management cannot absolutely guarantee the production of quality products, unfortunately, but makes this more likely. Two key principles characterise Quality Management: “fit for purpose” (the product should be suitable for the intended purpose) and “right first time” (mistakes should be eliminated).

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Further suggested reading:

1. Godfrey, A. B., “Juran’s Quality Handbook“, 1999, ISBN 007034003X

2. Pyzdek,T., “Quality Engineering Handbook“, 2003, ISBN 0824746147

3. Shukla Rakesh Kumar, “Total Quality Management Practising Manager”