Quality Management in Business



Quality Management in Business

Introduction

Quality management is considered as one of the major concern in any organization. The reputation an organization earns in the market depends on the level of quality it assures. Organizations pay due attention to quality management in order to survive in the market.

Discussion

Quality in terms of business and services provision

According to ISO 8402-94 standard, the term quality is defined as the set of properties or characteristics of an entity that enables it to satisfy expressed and implicit needs. As far as quality in terms of business and service provision is concerned, it can be defined as the perception of the extent to which the business or the services provided caters the satisfaction of the customer. Mostly, definition of quality depends on the context in which the term is referred. In other words, the ability of an organization of satisfying its customers through its business and provision of services to the degree that is expected by the customer is defined as quality (Goff, 2008, pp. 1-10). Processes of inspection and assurance

There are a number of processes that are associated with inspection and assurance. Inspection is a process that requires careful examination of the processes taking place as well as the materials. If some defect is found, it needs to be removed. These methods are dedicated toward addressing quality issues in the output of a business. Two of them are lean and the six sigma method. The method of lean employs continuous monitoring the business processes, and take steps dedicated towards reducing waste and useless efforts. Small businesses can benefit a lot from it, which are already running on small resources. This process aims at eliminating unproductive or useless steps or procedures that do not any value to the business or the product, repetitive mistakes that are time consuming in rectification and unnecessary movement of goods or materials.

As far as six sigma methods is concerned, it is aimed at reducing the defects in the business and/or products. This term refers to a value that indicates statistically zero defects. It also emphasizes on development of processes that enhances the business and reduces defects (Hsieh, 2000, pp. 193-194). Approaches to quality management

The approaches to quality management can be divided on the basis of the phase of time at which they are implemented. There are three such stages that are before the commencement of activity, during the activity or after the completion of the activity. Thus, they can be named as feed forward, concurrent and feedback approaches. However, the one that is mostly desired is feed forward approach i.e. before the commencement of the business or provisioning activity. It is advantageous because it provides management of the business the flexibility to take steps that can prevent the anticipated problems or defects, rather than addressing them later. In case of concurrent approach, business is continuously monitored, and problems that tend to become too costly are rectified before they become ...