Quality

Quality

This is one way of ensuring business attract and retain happy and loyal customers and build up an excellent reputation.

Quality control

This is where finished products are checked by inspectors to see if they meet the set standards.

Products are inspected at the start and the end of the production process.

Advantages

Reduces chance of poor quality products reaching end users.

Only some employees need to be trained as inspectors to look for faults.

Disadvantages

Faults only found at the end of production.

Quality assurance

This is where quality is build into the production process. Meaning that all staff check all items at all stages of the production process for faults.

Advantages

results in zero defect production

Aims to prevent the faulty product from being produced.

Quality circles

Quality circles are small groups of workers of different levels in the firm who come together to discuss and solve problems in production.

Benchmarking

This involves finding the best practice in your industry and then copying your competitor but adding some extra value to the product.

Advantages

Identifies best practice in the market which will improve performance if these methods are adopted by the organisation.

Can provide a goal for employees which will increase motivation.

Can make the organisation more competitive in the market.

Disadvantages

May be difficult to gather required information from competitors.

It can be time consuming to study techniques used by other companies.

Internal factors such as lack of finance may prevent the adoption of competitors practices.

Quality management

This is the continual improvement of process and system this involves everyone in the business working towards the goal of 100% customer satisfaction.

Mystery shopper

Are employed by the company to act as customers. They will then report back to the company on their experience.

Training

This is when all employees are fully trained to perform their job to the standard required by the organisation.

quality standards and symbols

Thes are set by the industry or the government and can be awarded to the organisation when whose products meet certain standards or criteria for example:

CE marking

BSI Kitemark