What is Quality?

A lot of QA managers think producing the parts that meet the customer requirement, delight customer and satisfy customer is doing a quality job. Every MBA student or experienced engineer learn that ISO9001:2008 also stressed that customer satisfaction is important.

All stated fact are very academic and true. But, if you are the owner of business, do you want to hire QA manager that always rejected your lots and offer no solution because it is part of quality system? Yet, the QA manager is so proud of their work "rejecting your part" because he has done a Quality Job.

I bet that if you are owner, you want to fire this manager because he is hired by you to do such a fine job academically but cause your downfall, you cannot survive in the market place with this kind of attitude in your QA manager.

Then, what? Does it mean all QA manager should be a politician? Let the lot passed and find a way to explain later. The answer is also NO.

Quality means doing the right thing at the right times that sell at the right price that make your customer and operation happy at the same time.

Customer sometimes do not know what they want and the customer always demand all the best thing in the world at the lower price. Trust me, if you always beleive all customer said is right, you dig your own grave and always behind your competitor.

Customer sometimes do not know what they want, they do not know what is the right thing and they do not what is the right time to have this product. They do know the right price if there is a lot of reference for them, in other words, if you follow what most academician mindset, means there must be a lot of references, a lot of existence product or things for them to check.

Quality definition from ISO9001:2008 and many academic papers focused on customer satisfaction. To make your customer happy, you focused on what they know, you are competiting with other. You are in red ocean. There will be blood everywhere.

Yes, in theory, you are doing a quality job or in reality you are bleeding your company's blood. So, there are many ways to make customer or consumer happy. Look at how Steve Job do it, he creates the right product at the right time and consumer is crazy about it. That is what Quality manager should do. Find out what is the right product and ensure the right timing to launch it to make the customer happy.

No, you should not create a product that cannot function or a bad product. A right product may not be perfect but it allows time for your solution. Look at Applegate issue (Apple antenna causes the drop call issue). It is not a nice thing to have and every QA manager fear to have it. But, does Apple close shop and customer stop buying Iphone because of that? The judgment is there!