“The consumer is the most important part of the production line. Quality
should be aimed at the needs of the consumer, present and future.”
─W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (1986)
Quality is a customer-centric management philosophy. Your customers dictate and define quality as meeting or exceeding their needs and expectations, at a price they are willing to pay. The business owner or the top management is responsible for defining and committing to quality. Quality initiative, for it to succeed, must be company-wide, involving all plants, departments, management, engineers, production workers, and suppliers, integrating every activity, from procurement, design and redesign of products and services , instrumentation, production, and consumer research (Deming, 1986).
The marketplace is very competitive. The quality of your products and services will make or break your business, determining your staying power, growth, profitability, and long-term sustainability. Most importantly, quality must be built at the beginning, not the end of the process. It starts by controlling your quality from the start of your supply chain and ending in the hands of your target market.
The following chain reaction, one that has become a way of life for Japan from 1950 onward (Deming, 1986), illustrates the benefits of quality─
