Total Quality Management Question#1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Total Quality Management Question#1 - Essay Example (Course book 1.3) There are several dimensions to identify what customers want for the products and services. David A Garvin (1984) suggests that there are 7 dimensions of quality which are performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability and aesthetics (Garvin, 1984). Performance means a product's primary operating characteristics, for example, the characteristics of an automobile would be acceleration, braking distance, steering and handling. Features is the "bells and whistles" of a product, for example, a car may have power options, a tape or CD deck, antilock brakes, and power seats. Reliability means the probability of a product's surviving over a specified period of time under stated conditions of use, for example, a car's ability to start on a cold winter morning and frequency of failures are reliability factors. Conformance means the degree to which physical and performance characteristics of a product match with the pre-established standards, for example, a car's fit, finishing and freedom from noises and squeaks can reflect this dimension. Durability means the amount of use one gets from a product before it physically deteriorates or until replacement is preferable, for example, a car with corrosion resistance and the long wear of upholstery fabric. Serviceability means the speed, courtesy, and competence of repair work, for example, the concerns on access to spare parts, the number of miles between major maintenance services, and the expense of service for an automobile owner. Aesthetics means how a product looks, feels, sounds, tastes, or smells, for example, a car's color, instrument panel design, control placement, and "feel of the road" may make it aesthetically pleasing (Evans & Lindsay 2005, p163) For Billing department of a major copiers company, Company A (Co A), in Hong Kong, its primary responsibility is to provide fast, accurate and easy to understand invoices to external customers who in turn use them to process their payment. The meaning of "Fast" for Co. A means invoices must be sent out after one week of the report meter reading cutoff date, under our normal process. "Accurate" means the amount of invoices billed to customers must be correctly calculated using the meter reading reported from customers under service agreement. Not only the amount of invoices must be correct, but also the customers' information such as customers' name, billing addresses, installation addresses, serial numbers and models of equipments, billing period and invoice due date etc., must be correctly stated on the invoices for customers to review. However, only accuracy in calculation is not a good quality service from a customer's perspective. The ease of understanding of invoices is also def ined as quality for Co. A. If the invoices are not easy to understand or read, customers may confuse or take lots of time to read them which causes inconvenience or dissatisfaction to customers. "Understandable" means the invoice must be accurately reflecting the actual amount charges, and different types of charges shown must be distinguishable and the layout is in a readable format for customers with sufficient information that customers required. The information like last meter readings, the current meter readings , current month's meter usage, the unit