Walter Meire bought by Tenex Capital Management!

[Joseph Tarantino]

Yep, to quote W. Edward Demming, "Quality is what the customer says it is." Too many people think that quality can only be expensive, high tolerance products. But the customer may want a product that is acceptable to the job and which is cheap enough to be discarded when the job is completed (for example). In that case, the expensive, high tolerance product is not high quality and the cheap, discardable product is high quality.

So many companies have gone out of business and the owner has said, "But I always made a high quality product!" If it's not what the customer wanted, it's not high quality.

Another way of phrasing it is "Quality is meeting the needs of the customer."

Mike

[A woodworking example: Many woodworkers use Japanese saws, not because they're so much better than western saws, but because they don't have to learn how to sharpen a saw or send the saw out to be sharpened. They just buy a new blade. For them (for their needs), the Japanese saw is a higher quality product than a western saw. It best meets their needs. Those who would argue with those people and try to tell them they're wrong and that western saws are of higher quality are on a fool's errand.]

actually, many quality managers define quality as conformance with a standard. a hugo automobile that did what it was designed to do could therefore be defined as a quality product, while a rolls royce, plagued with manufacturing defects, would not be a quality product as it did not conform to it's presciribed standards.

[Mike Henderson]

actually, many quality managers define quality as conformance with a standard. a hugo automobile that did what it was designed to do could therefore be defined as a quality product, while a rolls royce, plagued with manufacturing defects, would not be a quality product as it did not conform to it's presciribed standards.

Yep, that's the problem with things like ISO9000. It's basically "Say what you do and do what you say". But that's very short sighted. If you're doing something the customer doesn't want, the product won't be successful. And that's of course why Demming properly defined quality in terms of the customer.

The assumption behind what those quality managers say is that someone has worked with the customer to find out what the customer wants and then developed a specification to build a product. Since the quality manager only has limited authority, s/he defines quality within their domain as conformance to a standard. So the product can be completely failing in the marketplace because the marketing organization didn't do a good job, but the quality manager can absolutely prove that the manufacturing organization is building a quality product.

If you want to be successful in the marketplace, you must define quality in terms of what the customer wants.

Mike

[Ken Fitzgerald]

aaahhhh, threats. the last bastion of an indefensible position.

I am not threatening you Joseph. I am merely suggesting I could provide evidence of an obsession that further demonstrates your somewhat "different" views on value and reason.

Art is of little value to you Joseph, only, because as a perspective buyer you fail to find value in it. Value is subjective, it's personal. The next person may be willing to pay handsomely for a piece of art and it's not a sin. There is no right or wrong. I would suggest that those in the business of selling art find a lot of economic utility in it beyond the emotional utility you described.

Take real estate Joseph. The value of real estate is subjective. It's only worth what a perspective buyer is willing to pay. It doesn't matter what the seller believes the value is. It is not related in any way to the value that the place might assessed for tax purposes. It's only worth what a potential buyer is willing to pay. If a property is listed at too high a price, it may remain on the market for a very long time or never be sold. If it's listed at too low a price, it might sell quickly. But there is no right or wrong. It is not unusual in some housing markets for potential buyers to get into a bidding war and the person or persons with the highest bid buys the property. It happened recently to my youngest son, and his wife when their beautifully remodeled home sold for well over the asking price. Two competing buyers got into a bidding war. The buyers saw more value in the property and were willing to pay more but....it's subjective. Something is worth what the buyer is willing to pay.

There is no right or wrong.

But in the end .... for some reason I fail to understand, you just want to argue......

Have a good life Joseph.

[Frederick Skelly]

+1 Ken.

A lot of interesting discussion here.

Id like to repectfully add that I can make up measures/metrics for anything if I want to. That doesnt mean they are useful or meaningful. Ask someone who's had to report metrics to their management in a job other than manufacturing/production.

[Joseph Tarantino]

Yep, that's the problem with things like ISO9000. It's basically "Say what you do and do what you say". But that's very short sighted. If you're doing something the customer doesn't want, the product won't be successful. And that's of course why Demming properly defined quality in terms of the customer.

The assumption behind what those quality managers say is that someone has worked with the customer to find out what the customer wants and then developed a specification to build a product. Since the quality manager only has limited authority, s/he defines quality within their domain as conformance to a standard. So the product can be completely failing in the marketplace because the marketing organization didn't do a good job, but the quality manager can absolutely prove that the manufacturing organization is building a quality product.

If you want to be successful in the marketplace, you must define quality in terms of what the customer wants.

Mike

seems like there's confusion between quality and gauging market demand for a product. quality is not some form of "goodness" or "virtue", it is conformance to a standard so it can be measured and managed. building a great product that doesn't sell is possible and is not an example of poor quality. rather, it's an example of poor marketing research. good marketing research results in product features which are deemed desirable by the target market and result in specifications for that product. but a desired product won't sell many units if it doesn't conform to the design standards.

[Mike Henderson]

That's a problem with the definition of quality. But the only thing that counts is market success - meeting the needs of the customer. Too many companies have built to spec and failed. Look at Japanese cars. They were successful because they built what customers wanted - a car that would last. The American manufacturers were building to spec.
You decide which definition is more worthwhile.

Mike

[Thom Sturgill]

And you think the Japanese didn't build to spec.? the highest manufacturing award in Japan is the Demming.

A quality engineer once told me that the Ford Pinto was a higher quality car than the Cadillac. Cadillac had tight specs and often failed to meet them while the Pinto had loose specs and nearly always met them. While this was a technical definition of quality it fies in the face of the 'normal' understanding of quality .