How To Define Quality?

No matter how much we talk about it, still there is a lot of confusion around it - quality.

Where did this topic come from? I took my daughter to the mall to get her a new dress and while shopping; she was struggling to decide. I enquired what the problem was. She replied, “Appa, which is a higher quality. Our two-year-old Camry or a new mini cooper”

That question threw me aback. It opened a quiet new line of thought. I defined quality to my daughter on 2 parameters - Manufacturing and Design.

What I find is that it is useful to define quality using these 2 parameters. The conflict that arises between them always leads to confusion.

She asked me, “Appa what confusion. I have no doubts”. I had a lot inside of me.

Quality of Manufacturing - the ability to remove any variations from the specifications that a user may care about.

Quality of Design: a process that leads to customer delight. It will make it that someone would seek to get this product even if required to pay more.

With my Camry car, the quality of manufacturing is very clear from the amount I pay for the annual service. The manufacturing is spot on and the reliability is very high.

So it is also very clear that the design of the Mini is far luxurious and worthy of comment.

My kid throws her next dart at me. “So, which one would you prefer to buy?”

Every customer is very sure they want both the parameters and inside their perspective of budget.

Yet, I wanted to throw some light on the product manufacturer. What should he choose?

Let’s look at Amazon for a second. They promise 1-day delivery. Would a customer care if the product arrived at 10:15 or 10:20? Today Vs Tomorrow Vs 3 days, customers do not care a lot. Should Amazon then spend millions of dollars to improve the delivery faster? By 5 minutes that too? They rather spend that money on making their website interface more user-friendly. (Matter of fact, they have not done it yet)

The balance is to understand that marketers want both. A short-sighted CFO might want neither.

The next dart came within no second. “Appa, which is cheaper to do?”

It’s cheaper to build marketing design into the product than to advertise it. It’s cheaper to design manufacturing quality in the factory than after sales.

Both go hand in hand. She stopped me immediately. “You cannot dodge me, appa. You need to choose one”

There are interesting facts I notice about manufacturing quality. It is not going to be a key differentiator in the future. Reason? It is diminishing.

Reason#1: Incremental progress in quality is very expensive. Going from 1 defect in 10,000 to 1 in a million is cheap, but going from 1 in a million to 1 in a billion is exponential.

Reason#2: The increase in manufacturing skills is not proprietary. The technology that you change for the increase is as accessible to you as the competition.

Look at the other parameter, quality of design. It is always fast-moving, judgment-based. Supremacy is hard to replicate. (Source: Apple products)

“So what do you finally say, appa?”

“I would put my money on DESIGN”

Having said this, I find a peculiar trend in the current market. There is an obsessive focus on manufacturing quality than on design. The reason is that it is easier to define, measure, to work as a group.

Yes, I accept it’s essential, but in the future, it will not be a differentiator. It’s not as important as it was 20 years back.

It’s wiser to move to design from now on.

PS: My daughter went in for the most attractive dress in the store. I had to pay for it. Careful parents when you teach quality.