What is Quality?

When you hear someone mention quality, what comes to mind?

The dictionary says: Quality (qual-i-ty) noun; The standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.

When you go to a restaurant do you have an expectation of the quality of service and food you are about to receive? When you by a new pair of jeans, what level of quality do you expect? As a customer, we expect certain quality levels to be true whatever we are dealing with.

Doesn’t this also apply to the service you get at your bank or from your insurance company? Quality isn’t only in a physical product. One of the things in life that bothers me the most is the quality of the music playing when you call somewhere and are put on hold. That music is usually too loud and of poor audio quality.

In your role, do you know who your customer is. An even deeper question is do you know what quality they expect to receive from you? You might say, of course I know the customer. There name is on the order. There requirements are there also. However, how does the dictionary define a customer?

Customer (cus-tom-er) noun; A person or organization that receives goods or services from another person or organization.

In a business we have external customers whose name is on the order, but we also have internal customers. In any process you complete, from order entry to product delivery, you produce an output that becomes your customer’s input. The biggest problems in any organization is created in the “hands-offs” of information from one person to another.

So again I ask, “What is quality?” The definition mentioned the degree of excellence. Do you know exactly what the next person in line needs from you? Do you know how they are going to use the product or information you are passing on? If you are not sure you need to ask.

If we can recognize that we each have a place in the “quality chain”, and each of us needs to strive to hand off quality to the next person in the chain, our customers will see us as their highest quality supplier they have. When each step in the process is handle in a quality manner, we reduce errors and actually reduce the cost to produce our products.

Quality is everyone’s job. Quality is a mindset. Be a part of the Quality Team in your organization.