To understand the importance of quality in business today, we need to review some history. Before the Industrial Revolution 1.0 (circa 1700), skilled craftspeople served both as manufacturers and inspectors, building quality into their products through their considerable pride in their workmanship. Project owners expect quality, and craftspeople understood it . This can be seen in ancient mega-structure around the world’s most famous civilization such as temple, palace, or major infrastructure project at specific civilization.
However, the first industrial revolution (IR1.0), a term established by Arnold Toynbee to demarcate the transition of Europe and United States from agrarian and handicraft economy to industry and machine manufacturing nation that includes commercialization and industrialization of agricultural and handicraft industry, had altered the social culture view on quality, in line with industry developments. Quality, which previously rely on ‘best guess’ were revolutionized to collecting and gathering underlying data and decision and improvement are made based on hard facts.
The most prominent successful implementation of quality that world had ever acclaimed was how successful Japanese industry expands in post-World War 2, this is due to some certain measure imposed by their industrialist, includes:-
Their quality management system which characterized as company-wide participation, emphasis on employees training, quality circles, quality diagnoses, statistical methods, and national-wide campaign.
People from all levels of management and workers are involved in the company-wide quality management or total quality management. This concept intends to not only control quality levels of products by applying statistical methods and other analytical techniques, but also manage all kinds of work properly centered on quality,
Quality management has been identified as single most critical success factor in Japan’s factory by their management,
Supplier involvement in product development and.
Transforming individual skills to organizational capability.
The story began when the Japanese were synonymous with producing low-quality junk at an early stage of the Japanese industrialization era and invited Dr. W. Edwards Deming to lecture to the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) on quality control. Deming taught Japanese industrialists statistical and managerial concepts and told them that by applying these concepts, they could have the world asking for their products and Deming had been right. By the 1970s American auto and electronics industries were reeling from Japanese high-quality competition.
There were various meanings attached to the term "quality." If we polled the general public, experts, and institutions for their take on what constitutes quality, we might get as many answers as various respondents.
However, when people from different walks of life are working together to improve the company's quality, a standard definition in that organization is essential. Uncertainty and ambiguity may arise if there is not a single, agreed-upon definition of quality that applies across an organization and its outputs.
If you are a contractor, and your client relies on you, you should never skimp on quality (especially in construction). The contractor's quality is evaluated by how well it fits client requirements. Client has the final say, and if you haven't provided good workmanship or product, you won't be able to change their minds no matter how hard you try.
As we discovered above, various spheres of life have varied definitions of "quality." Below, we provide definitions of quality based on a variety of institutions. -
Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirement – ISO 9000.
the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something. – Oxford Dictionary
A characteristic of a product provided to customers, and the hallmark of an organization that has satisfied all of its stakeholders – Chartered Quality Institute.
Quality according to professional or quality Guru's
Quality is conformance to requirements - Phillip B. Crosby.
Quality is fitness for purpose of use – Joseph M. Juran.
Quality is meeting the legal, aesthetic and functional requirements of construction projects - David Arditti.
Another definition of quality worth quoting is by Dr. A. Blanton Godfrey, a modern-day quality guru. According to him attempting to define quality abstractly is both impossible and counterproductive. It's like trying to define the universe: describing a small section makes sense, but trying to apply that description to every planet, star, and galaxy in the cosmos leads to an impasse.
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