I have done quality evaluation and consulting for nearly 100 companies. Talking about quality management with company owners, VPs in charge of production, quality managers and chief engineers, I found that they quite often came across the following puzzles:

• The quality of our product is up to the national/industrial standard, but customers keep asking for more.

• Quality controls ensure that every batch of products complies with the technical standard. But customers continue to complain that the products fall short of quality in use.

• It is impossible to satisfy some requirements made by customers, for they remain technically unsolvable in the whole industry.

• The improvement of product quality always lags behind the rival company or customer requirements.

• The effort we make in keeping up with current trend of quality management turns out exhausting and we end up with losing more customers.

The key to the solution lies in a correct understanding of the essence of quality. It involves the following questions: What does quality originate from? What does quality focus on? Who finally judges quality?

Simple as these questions may appear, the perception of them determines quality strategy, product strategy and even the fate of a company.

WHAT DOES QUALITY FOCUS ON?

The answer to the question of what quality is usually refers to the compliance of the product with the technical standard and prescribed requirement. As to the evaluation of quality, the indexes usually involved are percent of good yield, defects rate and complaint rate. What do we get here? The focus of quality is nothing more than product.

Most companies have been accredited by ISO9001. It is their common knowledge that an essential principle of ISO9001 is to focus on customers. The definition of quality set by ISO9001 is concise, containing profound implication. But if it is literally interpreted, people tend to transfer, in practice, the focus from customers to product. Table 1 below shows the point.

 

Various gurus hold various definitions of quality. But they all agree on one point that quality is all about customers, for customers finally judge the quality of a product.
I personally commend the definition set by Crosby, which tells the truth in a simple and precise way. According to Crosby, quality is all about customers. Quality is "conformance to (customer) requirement".

One might ask:

• What is the problem with focusing on product? Isn't it product that customers pay for?

• Is it practical to meet "all" customer requirements?

When customers are the priority of the concern, the company will take into account the potential impact on current customers and target customers when making any customer-related decisions, including developing new products, improving current products, handling customer complaints and reducing cost, etc. By doing so, the company is able to make plans that benefit both customers and the company. On the contrary, if product is the biggest concern, only lip service will be paid to so-call "putting customers first" and the company's profit becomes the sole concern. Even when customers are involved in this case, it is merely out of practical consideration of doing a better promotion. That is the reason why many companies attach much importance to marketing but fail to deliver products with real values, i.e., quality and service.

There are many quality management tools, helping companies to focus on customer requirements. Quite a number of companies are using these tools, which we should applaud. But it is people who man all tools. Without a corporate culture that puts customers first, a desirable and long-term success can never be achieved. Crosby once gave an illustration. You provide a driver with the best possible training in driving skills and in traffic rules, and also equip the vehicle with the most advanced technologies. However, whether or not he will make drunk driving or speed does not depend on the training or equipment. Rather, it is determined by his consciousness, i.e., whether or not he always puts other people's life in the foremost place. In the same way, "putting customers first" needs to be rooted in the company's consciousness and to become its culture, which cannot be actualised by simply a few tools, campaigns or teams. It has to become a daily guideline for all actions taken by top executives and all staff members, and a criterion to measure all decisions of the company. If adhering to this principle, the company will eventually develop a culture in which customers are the real focus. According to Toyota's Long-term Operation Philosophy, the company grows by increasing customer value, even at the expense of short-term financial goals. Such is the difference between paying lip service to "customers first" and setting it as principle and guideline. 

Focusing on customers doesn't mean meeting all requirements of all customers. Any product of any company has its own target customers. When a company targets its customers, what follows is to make effort to realise and increase customer values. When a company does focus on its customers, it will come to understand their thoughts and detect their requirement changes. However, if product is the focus, the company will not be even aware of the loss of customers.

THE BOUNDARY OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Changing the focus of quality from products to customers, we then need to redefine the boundary of Quality Management.

Figure 1 below illustrates the origin and the flow of quality. If every staff member and every department in the company strive to meet customer requirements, a quality chain will be developed to connect every link.

 

When the focus of quality is on product, quality management is limited within the company (yellow circle), and customers are ignored (blue circle). Although many companies do leave some room channelling customer complaints, it merely serves as a passive response. When the focus of quality is on customers, quality management system is completed (yellow circle and blue circle).

Let¡¯s come back to a basic question: why do customers buy our product? It is because they think or believe that the product or service we provide will meet their requirements (which realise customer values). How does quality work? A customer puts forward a quality requirement, which might be in written form (such as the standard stated in the purchase contract), or in other forms, such as the case where an ordinary consumer is purchasing the goods. Only until after he uses the product, does he know whether or not his requirements are met. In Table 2 below are different consumer responses to product quality.

 

In order to meet customer requirements, every link in the quality chain is of vital importance: To thoroughly understand the requirements of target customers, including those clearly stated or buried underneath (Q customer requirements); To effectively actualise customer requirements through product designing (Q design); To manufacture in full accordance with the requirements, ensuring that the product quality conforms with the designing requirements  (Q product); To find out, after they use the products (Q product in use), if customers are satisfied with the product and if their expectant requirements are met  (Q customer requirements).

There are many issues in the links related to customers that tend to be neglected:

• Customers¡¯ expectation is dynamic, not static;

• Not all expectations can be put to words;

• Most of the time, customers do not fully understand what they want, or are not able to put their expectations into technical terms;

• The R&D people in the observing position will never understand the feeling of customers, but they always think they do.

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A key to solutions is to experience, to understand (instead of merely observing and asking questions) how customers are using the products, and to take initiatives, finding out what customers feel after using the products (instead of waiting passively for their complaints). The following conceptions are of great help in gaining better understanding of customers:

• The product is used as a whole by customers. They don't use technical indexes.

• The reason why customers have various requirements can be found in the way they use the products.

• Customers themselves are under increasing pressures.

• Not every customer is willing to spend time complaining when he is not satisfied.

• Not every customer will let you know before he is ready to leave, nor will he give the reason for his leaving.

• Customers are not obliged to tell you about his new requirements.

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Lastly, let's look into two cases which demonstrate the significance and functions of the quality management which put customers in the foremost place.

1. When I worked in Pepsi (China), we invited some quality managers of our vendors and trained them in the factory. Part of the training programme was to help them understand how our products were manufactured, how materials they provided were used in the products and also what impact they would make upon our customers. By doing so, we hoped to extend our quality management to the level of vendors. After the training, these quality managers came to realise why Pepsi had various requirements, for example, the requirements of improving the materials. All these requirements, they now learned, originated from customers. The training programme also helped them to understand that customers did not raise issues without good reasons. When you complain that customers ask for too much, it is you who fail to understand your customers.

2. In 2002, I went to a conference of quality management in the United States. The man who sat next to me was a professor in a university in the States. When he learned that I worked in Pepsi, he was pleased to tell me that his favourite drink was Pepsi. He added that Pepsi tasted good in any place and in any time in the world. I was very proud to disclose the ¡°secrecy¡± behind it. In order to protect its own brand, Pepsi has a third-party company to conduct a regular random sample survey. They would send the sample to a testing centre appointed by Pepsi to be tested. Apart from physical and chemical indexes and microbiological index, the test also included sensory index (testing the flavour customers might feel). Pepsi already developed, many years ago, a system to test the drink flavour. This system continues to be improved. What lies behind this practice is that customers drink Pepsi as a holistic product. Neither physical or chemical or microbiological index can ever replace the flavour that customers might sense. Hence, the sensory index is essential and indispensable. Such a practice does not demand advanced technology. What it needs is the idea that customers are the most important. It means that the boundary of quality management should be extended to customers. In addition to the technical index, customer requirements have to be taken into account.

When customers come into the focus, quality management will, then, breaks through the boundary of product by completing a quality chain, where customers' need is well looked after in every link. By achieving this, a company will no longer be troubled by customers' "novel" and "undue" requirements. Moreover, it will be able to offer to its customers "surprises" one after another even before their "novel" and "undue" requirements emerges. Hence, the product will not get "outdated" and will not lose to your competitors. When a company succeed in "understanding customers more than they do themselves", it is sure to win many more loyal customers and keep them.

(The author is DIMP05 student at CEIBS. She works as an independent quality trainer and consultant.)