PAD253 Chapter 1: Defining Quality in Public Sector Management

Defining Quality

• Quality is defined as "Performance to the standard expected by the customer" (Fred Smith, CEO of Federal Express).
• Quality is "Doing the right thing right the first time, always striving for improvement, and always satisfying the customer" (US Dept. of Defense).
• Quality is determined by the product users, clients, or customers, not by society in general.
• Quality is not the same as 'expensive' or 'high quality', and low-priced products can be considered as having high quality if the product users determine them as such.
• Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services, people, and environments that meets or exceeds customers' expectations (Goetsch & Davis, 2006).

Summary of Definitions of Quality

• Quality involves meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
• Quality applies to products, services, people, processes, and environments.
• Quality is an ever-changing state.

Total Quality (TQ)

• TQ is an approach to doing business that attempts to maximize the competitiveness of an organization through the continual improvement of the quality of its products, services, people, processes, and environments (Goetsch & Davis, 2010).
• The "Big Q" refers to quality of products, services, people, processes, and environments.
• The "Little Q" refers to a narrower concern that focuses on the quality of one of these elements or individual quality criteria within an individual element.

Key Elements of Total Quality

• Strategically based, having a comprehensive strategic plan to provide sustainable competitive advantage.
• Customer focus, both internally and externally.
• Obsession with quality, becoming obsessed with meeting or exceeding customers' expectations.
• Quality is determined by product/service users.
• Doing the right thing from the first time.
• Quality always strives for improvement (continuous improvement).

Quality Assurance (QA)

• QA is any planned and systematic activity directed towards providing consumers with products of appropriate quality, along with confidence that products meet consumers' requirements (Evans & Lindsay, 2008).
• QA includes two principles: "Fit for purpose" and "Right first time".

Quality Control (QC)

• QC consists of three processes: assess/evaluate actual quality performance, compare actual performance with performance goals, and take immediate steps to resolve differences between planned performance and actual performance (Goetsch & Davis, 2006).
• QA and QC differ in that QA attempts to improve and stabilize production, emphasizing testing of products to uncover defects, and reporting to management, while QC focuses on the actual quality performance.