"Quality is satisfaction and competitive prices for the client, and profitability and sustainability for the company." Quality is a concept used quite frequently nowadays, but in turn, its meaning is perceived in different ways. When speaking of quality goods and / or services, people usually refer to luxury or excellent goods at high prices. Its meaning remains ambiguous and many times its use depends on what everyone understands by quality, so it is important to begin to unify its definition.
Many authors have given their own definition of the term quality:
- W. Edwards Deming indicates that: “Quality control does not mean achieving perfection. It means achieving efficient production with the quality you expect to get in the market. ”Josephhp M. Juran defines quality as:“ Fitness for use. ”Philip Crosby defines it as:“ Compliance with requirements. ”Armand V. Feigenbaum defines the quality such as: “The total composition of the characteristics of the products and services of marketing, engineering, manufacturing and maintenance, through which the products and services are some will meet the expectations of customers.” ISO 9000.2000: Degree in which a set of inherent characteristics meets the requirements.
However, the term quality must be understood by managers, administrators and officials of current organizations such as:
"Achieving customer satisfaction through the proper establishment of all their requirements and compliance with efficient processes, thus allowing the organization to be competitive in the industry and benefit the customer with reasonable prices."
To properly fit the definition given above, organizations should look for:
- Forgetting that the customer wants what we think they should want or expect from the product and / or service we offer. It is not the organization that establishes what and how it will sell the product and / or service, it is the client who defines what it needs and how it needs it, and it is from this perspective that we have to analyze whether we can cover those needs and how, including whether it is attractive Sell it for our profitability aspirations. If we have decided to offer the product and / or service with the needs and expectations established by the client, it is essential that we begin to internally see our processes and begin to design improvements that optimize the use of resources to carry it out (without this means reducing the requirements and expectations of the client).The search for efficiency and continuous improvement means gradually eliminating failures, reprocessing, complaints, production times and everything that hinders the performance of the service and / or product. All of the aforementioned, including the negative attitude that some officials may have, raise the costs of the company and that goes against one of the fundamental aspects of the concept, such as offering reasonable prices and, at the same time, having an attractive profitability that allow the organization to be sustainable.they raise the costs of the company and that goes against one of the fundamental aspects of the concept such as offering reasonable prices and, at the same time, having an attractive profitability that allows the organization to be sustainable.they raise the costs of the company and that goes against one of the fundamental aspects of the concept such as offering reasonable prices and, at the same time, having an attractive profitability that allows the organization to be sustainable.
Every manager or person in charge of an organization that initiates a process of continuous improvement and search for quality, must begin by unifying the criteria, definitions and perceptions of what is "quality" for the members of their organization; In this way, the way to reach it can be made more agile, since all the members will be clear about what to look for.
