These days, quality is a more important part of our lives than we can even begin to imagine. There are very few products and services – if any, where quality doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest, even the quality of the toilet paper you use is something that can make or break your morning 🙂
And Quality I find, is one of those words that’s casually thrown around and misused. We especially tend to let others such as companies establish and determine what is qualitative and what is not and while that may not be necessarily a bad thing, we need to remember that quality is something that concerns us as the users foremost. Therefore, I believe that we, as consumers should be more involved and have a more complete image of quality, not just to make better informed decisions but also to be more satisfied with the products we are using and help us become better consumers.
A common misconception is that quality is something that big companies can achieve and produce and categorize products and services based on the degree/or type of quality they offer, and this is reflected in the price most frequently. But what happens when companies are not categorizing their products based on quality? or simply don’t produce different quality tiers of products? or even when competitors claim their lower tier quality product is better than their competitor’s top tier quality? Then, it is up to you, as the consumer, to determine what is fit for you, what is qualitative and what is not.
If you are a small business owner who cares about their business and wants to improve the quality of their products, services, or processes, you might look up to other companies to understand how quality is achieved there and might feel intimidated by the quality management systems of big companies which can leave you feeling defeated, overwhelmed and as if you shouldn’t concern with quality practices and tools since they are so complex and expensive. And I’m here to say that you can apply simple quality management tools and practices that are fit for your company and which won’t cost you a dime if you understand how and when to use them (which hopefully you will from these blog posts). It was Kauro Ishikawa’s – one of the gurus of quality management – belief that over 90% of quality problems within a company can be solved with seven basic quality tools. And let me tell you, that guy knew a thing or two about quality management.
Quality management doesn’t have to be expensive; you don’t have to have the same quality management system as another company to produce qualitative products, that’s the beauty of quality management, and that’s what I’m aiming for. Empowering individuals and small companies to embrace quality management, to apply simple yet very powerful quality management tools and philosophies to increase the quality of their products, services or even processes while also having a better overall understanding of what quality is.
My wish is to change the way the world looks and tackles quality and quality management. And I’m planning on doing that with the help of short, easy-to-read articles that have real-life case studies and examples to better understand all the theoretical concepts. And the best part: you can read these articles and learn about quality while having your daily cup of tea (or coffee, not going to judge 🙂 )
So, grab your favorite beverage and get ready to learn useful things that’ll change the way you look at quality and quality management.