Perspectives of the Quality

Quality and different perspectives of quality can be seen in the perspectives of the company’s interest groups. Different perspectives of quality are introduced in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Different perspectives of quality (Lillrank 1990:41).

In product-oriented quality perspective, a product includes features that define the quality. These features are for example performance of the processor of the com-puter, amount of meat in sausage, and durability of the battery in the mobile phone. These examples explain well how strongly quality is combined with the product’s performance or consistency. It can be said that in product-oriented

qual-Enviromental oriented Customer

oriented Competition

V alue

oriented

Production oriented Quality

Standardized

Enviromental effects Satisfied

customer No worse than

others

Performance

oriented

oriented

Product-"Best quality-lowest price”

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

QUALITY Continuous improvement

PROFITABILITY Competitiveness

GOAL MEDIATION

ity, quality is a cost. This is due to the fact that modification to a product’s feature is a cost and increases the product’s price. In borderline cases, the evaluated product is estimated as a good product but goodness is related to a feature which is not relevant to the customer. The customer is buying the product to satisfy needs with features of the product, but if alternatives and competition exist, the customer may reject the product even if it is excellent. (Lillrank 1990: 43)

In the production-oriented quality perspective, it is emphasized that when a prod-uct is manufactured according to instrprod-uctions and standards given and no defects are to be found, quality product requirement is fulfilled according to production-oriented quality. In this definition of quality, measurability of the quality is easy because a product fulfilling the criteria of quality is manufactured without defects or variations. Quality control has a big role in ensuring that quality demands are really actualising. As indicators of quality, the number of defective pieces per the number of pieces produced is used and the main task for quality control is to en-sure that no defected pieces are produced. (Lillrank 1990: 42)

In environmental-oriented quality perspective, quality is defined by a product’s effect on the environment and society. In this case the customer is society and nature setting demands for the product. For example, environmental loading and emissions caused by the product within its life cycle can be seen as definitions for the quality perspective. Influences for the environmental-oriented quality perspec-tive come usually from outside the company. This results in a situation where there may be some aspects that the company can oppose. Anyhow, this quality perspective is becoming more and more important together with the customer-oriented quality perspective. (Lillrank 1990: 43)

Customer-oriented quality is based on the customer perspective where quality is combined with all factors that are needed to guarantee customer satisfaction.

These factors of customer-oriented quality are in conformity with qualities like accuracy, quality of the service, design of the product. These are equal to external features of the product, performance of the product, special features, reliability and durability. (Pajunen 1991: 8-9)

Quality experienced by customer is considered as relative quality and is an impor-tant issue also when competitiveness of the company is considered. In reality this means that customer feels that his or her needs are fulfilled. This quality experi-enced by customer determines the success of the company in the markets. When quality experienced by customer is discussed, the most important factor for the purchase decision is the cost or price. Customer will get the best value from the product which he or she feels to offer the best value for the money. The value of the product can also be determined as follows; value = price/quality. Each

indi-vidual customer can, however, have a unique idea about what to put in the first place and how to judge each factor of the quality. (Pajunen 1991: 11-12)

According to the value, the relation between costs and benefits determines the quality of the product. All factors of quality are to be defined against the price.

With this definition the best quality is in the product which offers the best benefit with the same amount of money. Value-oriented quality is not black and white, resources used and evaluations made in purchasing have a big effect. (Lillrank 1990: 43-44)

Competition-oriented quality is defined according to the competitors. Quality must be exactly as good as competitors have, but quality that is higher than com-petitors’ quality only creates extra costs. In competition-oriented quality the cus-tomer is the judge and estimator who evaluates and compares products to other products or services available. This quality perspective has brought methods like benchmarking where estimations of products and services are compared to those of competitors. (Lillrank 1990: 44)

Figure 6. Comparison of the quality definitions (Lillrank 1990: 50).

There are several different definitions of quality. The definition used depends a lot on the angle perception is made. Comparison of the different quality defini-tions can be made according to the Figure 6. In this case it is important to notice all quality perspectives so that no single perspective can take too much steering in the company. In this way quality balance is stabile and benefits of quality are in best use.

There is variation in the interpretation of features between different product and customer groups. Quality layers also include relationship-quality which consists

External

Internal

Absolutive Relative

Production oriented Environmental oriented

Product oriented Value oriented

Competition oriented Customer oriented

of customer service, interactive media that enables customer contact to organiza-tion and experiences of customer. (Korkeamäki et al. 2002: 49-50)