What Does "Product Quality" Really Mean?: Five Approaches To Defining Quality

What Does “Product Quality” Really Mean?

Product quality is rapidly becoming an important competitive issue. The superior reliability of
many Japanese products has sparked considerable soul-searching among American managers.1
In addition, several surveys have voiced consumers’ dissatisfaction with the existing levels of
quality and service of the products they buy.2 In a recent study of the business units of major
North American companies, managers ranked “producing to high quality standards” as their
chief current concern.3
Five Approaches to Defining Quality
1. The Transcendent Approach
According to the transcendent view, quality is synonymous with “innate excellence.”4 It is both absolute
and universally recognizable, a mark of uncompromising standards and high achievement.
2. The Product-based Approach
Product-based definitions are quite different; they view quality as a precise and measurable variable.
According to this view, differences in quality reflect differences in the quantity of some ingredient or
attribute possessed by a product.
3. The User-based Approach
User-based definitions start from the opposite premise that quality “lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
Individual consumers are assumed to have different wants or needs, and those goods that best satisfy
their preferences are those that they regard as having the highest quality.
4. The Manufacturing-based Approach
ser-based definitions of quality incorporate subjective elements, for they are rooted in consumer
preferences — the determinants of demand. In contrast, manufacturing-based definitions focus on the
supply side of the equation, and are primarily concerned with engineering and manufacturing practice.
Virtually all manufacturing-based definitions identify quality as “conformance to requirements.”
5. The Value-based Approach
Value-based definitions take this idea one step further. They actually define quality in terms of costs
and prices. According to this view, a quality product is one that provides performance at an acceptable
price or conformance at an acceptable cost

Eight Dimensions of Quality

Eight dimensions can be identified as a framework for thinking about the basic elements of product
quality:
• Performance,
• Features,
• Reliability,
• Conformance,
• Durability,
• Serviceability,
• Aesthetics,
• Perceived Quality.
Quality and Price
The theoretical argument about the relationship between quality and price runs in both
directions. On the one hand, quality and price are assumed to be positively correlated. If
higher quality can only be produced at higher cost, and if costs and prices are, as economic
theory suggests, positively related, then quality and price will move together.
Quality and Advertising
Nelson first introduced the distinction between “search” and “experience” goods. The
attributes of the former can be determined prior to purchase, while those of the latter can only
be learned after the product has been purchased and used. The cut and fit of an article of
clothing are examples of product characteristics that can be learned through search; the
reliability and durability of a major home appliance are examples of traits that can be learned
only through experience.
Quality and Cost
One group, following the product-based approach, argues that quality and direct cost are
positively related. The implicit assumption here is that quality differences reflect variations in
performance, features, durability, or other product attributes that require more expensive
components or materials, additional labor hours in construction, or other commitments of
tangible resources.
A second view, which draws on the operations management literature, sees quality and cost as
inversely related because the costs of improving quality are thought to be less than the
resulting savings in rework, scrap, and warranty expenses
Quality is a complex and multifaceted concept. It is also the source of great confusion:
managers — particularly those in different functions — frequently fail to communicate
precisely what they mean by the term. The result is often endless debate, and an inability to
show real progress on the quality front.

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What Does “Product Quality” Really Mean?

Eight Dimensions of Quality

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