ABSTRACT
The Quality is considered as an emergent property of a ‘system’ or organisation achievable through three dimensions of knowledge. Management of the whole system enables the delivery of quality products and services, however ‘quality’ is defined. The critiques of the quality gurus identified that none fully addressed the question of how to properly engage senior management with the idea of pursuing a ‘quality’ strategy. A critical new skill set has emerged as a requirement in recent years and that is those skills required to capture, store, organise, manipulate and report data coupled to the competence of those with decision responsibility for using the information provided to support their decisions. The failure to understand service quality as transient, ephemeral and experiential has driven a proliferation of service quality management systems which emulate those of manufacturing in being built around the service process rather than the human engagement.
