Meaning of Quality Everyone has had experiences of poor quality when dealing with business organizations.

These experiences might involve an airline that has lost a passengers luggage, a dry cleaner that has left clothes wrinkled or stained, poor course offerings and scheduling at your college, a purchased product that is damaged or broken, or a pizza delivery service that is often late or delivers the wrong order, atau dalam konteks lain, kita sering menemui pertnayaan ketika memilih suatu produk, kaatakanlah ketika akan membeli mobil. Pertanyaan yang sering muncul barangkali adalah lebih berkualitas mana suatu SUV atau sedan. Pertanyaan lain yang sering muncul adalah ketika memilih antara laptop dan PC, kita sering membandingkan lebih berkualitas mana antara laptop dan PC. Kejadian-kejadian yang kita temui sehari-hari mengenai produk yang tidak sesuai harapan, pelayanan yang mengecewakan sampai pada pertanyaan pada saat kita memilih mobil yang akan kita beli, kita bersinggungan dengan kulaitas. Sebelum memasuki membahas lebih jauh mengenai bagaimana suatu organiasasi produk atau jasa yang berkualitas, terlebih dahulu kita harus memahami arti dari Quality itu sendiri. Seperti diebutkan sebulumnya, di dalam sebuah organisasi, terdapat aktifitas merubah input menjadi output. Dalam konteks organiasi bisnis, output ini haruslah merupakan sesuatu yang dapat diterima atau memenuhi persayaratan pelanggan, dan dihasilkan dengan cara yang sefisien mungkin, atau dengan kata lain, output ini harus merupakan output yang berkualitas. Definisi dari kualitas dari berbagai referensi adalah sebagai berikut : (1) Websters Dictionary Kualitas adalah degree of excellence of a thing (2) American Society for Quality Kualitas adalah totality of features and characteristics that satisfy needs (3) ISO 8402 dan SNI 19-8402-1991 Kualitas adalah keseluruhan ciri dan karakteristik produk / jasa yang kemampuannya dapat memuaskan kebutuhan, baik yang dinyatakan secara tegas maupun tersamar. Sementara kebutuhan adalah spesifikasi yang tercantum dalam kontrak maupun kriteria yang harus didefinisikan terlebih dahulu (4) Kualitas berdasarkan Perspektif Pelanggan a. Fitness for use Pemaham ini menjelaskan bahwa kualitas focuses on how well the product performs its intended function or use. For example, a Mercedes Benz and a Jeep Cherokee both meet a fitness for use definition if one considers transportation as the intended function. However, if the definition becomes more specific and assumes that the intended use is for transportation on mountain roads and carrying fishing gear, the Jeep Cherokee has a greater fitness for use. You can also see that fitness for use is a user-based definition in that it is intended to meet the needs of a specific user group.

b. Conformance to specifications

Conformance to specifications measures how well the product or service meets the targets and tolerances determined by its designers. For example, the dimensions of a machine part may be specified by its design engineers as 3.05 inches. This would mean that the target dimension is 3 inches but the dimensions can vary between 2.95 and 3.05 inches. Similarly, the wait for hotel room service may be specified as 20 minutes, but there may be an acceptable delay of an additional 10 minutes. Also, consider the amount of light delivered by a 60 watt light bulb. If the bulb delivers 50 watts it does not conform to specifications. As these examples illustrate, conformance to specification is directly measurable, though it may not be directly related to the consumers idea of quality.

c. Support Services Support services provided are often how the quality of a product or service is judged. Quality does not apply only to the product or service itself; it also applies to the people, processes, and organizational environment associated with it. For example, the quality of a university is judged not only by the quality of staff and course offerings, but also by the efficiency and accuracy of processing paperwork. d. Value for price paid Value for price paid is a definition of quality that consumers often use for product or service usefulness. This is the only definition that combines economics with consumer criteria; it assumes that the definition of quality is price sensitive. For example, suppose that you wish to sign up for a personal finance seminar and discover that the same class is being taught at two different colleges at significantly different tuition rates. If you take the less expensive seminar, you will feel that you have received greater value for the price. (5) Kualitas berdasarkan Perspektif Producer Making sure a product or service is produced according to design dengan memenuhi budget. (6) Kualitas adalah QCDSM (a final perspective) a. Quality Kualitas adalah produk atau jasa yang memenuhi spesifikasi teknis (kebutuhan) pelanggan b. Cost kualitas adalah produk atau jasa yang dihasilkan dengan biaya yang wajar atau murah c. Delivery kualitas adalah produk atau jasa yang tersedia di tempat pelanggan membutuhkan dan pada saat dibutuhkan atau dihasilkan dalam jangka waktu yang diminta pelanggan d. Safety

kualitas adalah produk atau jasa yang diproduksi dengan cara-cara yang aman (mempertimbangkan K3LH) dan dapat digunakan oleh pelanggan secara aman (tidak menimbulkan dampak bahaya pada pelanggan) e. Morale kualitas adalah kebanggan atau kepuasan yang diperoleh pelanggan pada saat menggunakan produk atau jasa atau kebanggan atau kepuasan karyawan ketika dapat memberikan kepuasan pada pelanggan

Why Quality is appreciated

Customer priorities when purchasing a product

1st Purchase
FUNCTION PRICE QUALITY

2nd Purchase and Repeptitive Purchase

FUNCTION QUALITY PRICE

So, why is quality so appreciated among the many factors?Buku TQC Handbook menyebutkan bahwa mengapa quality is so apprecitaed. Figure 8 compares customers priorities in one case, first-time purchases, with those in other cases, second time or repetitive purchases. As previously discussed, to buy a product is in fact to buy a function of the product (Kaneko 2000b, 2); therefore, obviously, in all cases, functionality needs to be assured in the first place when customers buy the product. In the case of first purchases, the first priority is price rather than quality. When a product comes to the market for the very first time, there are no other products by which to compare it; therefore, the customers merely pay the price that they think is reasonable to pay for the function of the product. For example, when refrigerators first came to the market, customers first looked at the price and then decided whether to buy the product or not. If the price was as high as thousands of dollars, they might find it unreasonable to pay such amount for just keeping things in cool storage. But if the price were reasonable enough, they would be interested in buying one. In these cases, the quality aspect of refrigerators could not be ascertained very well, as the customers did not really have many factors by which to judge whether the quality was reasonable for the price they would have to pay and didnt know what other qualities to look for in refrigerators. On the other hand, when people purchase a second refrigerator, in many cases they will prioritize quality rather than price. This is because, they now know that there are a number of refrigerators

available from a variety of companies. Therefore, the reasonableness of the price can be determined through comparison of not only function but also quality. This mechanism demonstrates the importance of quality. Therefore, if the company is to have repeat customers, it is crucial that their product have high quality that keeps attracting customers and outpacing the competition.