What is Quality?
The common element of the business definitions is that the quality of a product or service refers to the perception of the degree to which the product or service meets the customer's expectations. Quality has no specific meaning unless related to a specific function and/or object.
The business meanings of quality have developed over time. Various interpretations are given below:
1. According quality Guru Philip Crosby, Quality is “Conformance to Requirements.”
2. Joseph Juran says, quality is “Fitness for Use”. When “fitness for use” concept applied to garment it must
- Be free from defects such as stains fabric defects, open seams, misaligned button and button holes, defective zippers etc.
- Fit properly to the wearer (as per labeled size).
- Perform satisfactorily in normal use that means a garment must be able to withstand normal laundering/ dry cleaning cycle without color loss or shrinkage, seams must not come apart, fabric must not tear etc.
3. According to Genichi Taguchi Quality is - "Uniformity around a target value." The idea is to lower the standard deviation in outcomes, and to keep the range of outcomes to a certain number of standard deviations, with rare exceptions.