Quality……. can you define Quality in your own words?

Quality Gurus, define quality in their own specific way.

They all have their own view on quality, their own styles.

The definition of quality of three of our quality gurus:

1. Philip B. Crosby; quality means: ” Conformance to requirements”
2. W. Edward Deming: Quality of any product or service can only be defined by the customer” (and quality will change in meaning depending the customers’ needs)
3. Joseph Juran: ” Fitness for use” (Free from deficiencies)

I am inspired by the work of all of them, and thanks to them we as young quality professionals can keep moving forward. Their words are still motivating so many people and they will keep motivating a lot of new quality professionals in the future.

The definition of the word quality, wow, I just went online and searched for the definition. Just as you would expect there are a lot of different definitions and interpretations to be found.

So everybody is interpreting the word quality in his or her own way.

That’s why everything that has to do with quality is so precious, so interesting, so fascinating. Because of this sometimes it’s also a little bit complicated.

All of these definitions have one important element in common:

The Customer

We try to deliver quality through a lot of steps and techniques:

• Using standards
• Check points
• Controls
• SPC
• Building quality into the products
• Audits
• Empowerment
• Better communication (internal customers, suppliers)
• etc.

We do all of this with one purpose:

“Satisfying the needs of the customers”

When I use the word customers I mean the external customer. The external customer has the last word. He can be satisfied with your product and or service, or he can be dissatisfied. He is very important to us and to our business, because he actually pays for the product/service.

Quality varies between customers. What the one finds great, the other finds less so.

Quality for a customer is actually what he or she expects to get from the product/service versus what he or she actually gets.

This is what quality is all about for each and every customer. Problems and misunderstandings arise when there is a difference between what is expected and what is received.

So the first order of business is to:

“Ask your customers what they want from you”

If customers are so important to us and to our business, why are only a few institutions trying to get more information from there customers, and or potential customers? Why do we neglect the ones who are no longer doing business with us?

These are all very important questions, and they are all related to: QUALITY.

Satisfying the needs of the customer is not an easy job, but again, it has to do with how you define quality and what you want to get out of your business.

So I will ask you the same question once more:

Can you define Quality in your OWN words?

If you can, please feel free to share it with all of us.

It’s all about quality