ABSTRACT
This chapter explains some of the mistakes organizations make when measuring the quality of their products and services, and provides some suggestions on how to select the most appropriate measures. The information on what customers want and expect helps tell an organization what dimensions of its products or services need to be measured and controlled. Using an approach called quality function deployment, firms like Mazda and Hewlett-Packard define specific customer requirements for products that do not yet exist. Browning-Ferris Industries, one of the largest sanitation companies, used to measure service quality with one simple metric: whether the trash was picked up on the appropriate day each week for every customer location. Quality can include measures of accuracy, completeness, conformance, innovation/novelty, and class. Some organizations put together a product or service quality report card that summarizes key product or service quality data.
