Quality Control and Assurance
One faulty product can cost a business a customer for life. Learn the difference between checking quality at the end and building it in at every stage, and why quality is worth the effort.
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Getting it right
A single faulty product can cost a business a customer for life, plus the cost of putting it right. Managing quality is how firms keep products and services good enough. There are two main ways to do it, and this module compares them.
Control against assurance, defined
Four terms run through this module:
Two ways to manage quality
Both aim for good quality, but they work at different points in the process.
Check at the end
What is quality control?
- Checking finished products for faults at the end
- Building quality in at every stage
- Ignoring customer complaints
- Always setting the highest price
Quality terms
- Quality
- Quality control
- Quality assurance
- Fit for purpose
- Meeting the standards customers expect
- Inspecting products at the end of production
- Building quality in at every stage
- Doing the job it was designed to do
Why quality pays
Good quality controls costs by cutting waste and returns, and it protects reputation so customers stay loyal. It also gives a competitive advantage: a business known for quality can win more customers, and sometimes charge a higher price.
What good quality brings
Select the TWO benefits of good quality for a business.
- Fewer returns and less waste
- A stronger reputation with customers
- Higher spending on faulty goods
- Losing customers to rivals
Work out the reject rate
A factory makes 200 phones in a day, and 10 of them are returned as faulty. What percentage of the phones are faulty?
Match each result of quality to its benefit
- Less waste
- Fewer returns
- A good reputation
- Reliably high quality
- Lower production costs
- Happier customers and lower costs
- More customers choose the brand
- A competitive advantage over rivals
When quality slips
Put the chain of events from poor quality into order.
- A faulty product reaches the customer
- The customer returns it and complains
- The business pays to replace it and loses trust
- Its reputation and sales fall
Before and after the change
A furniture workshop makes 400 chairs a month. Under its old system one inspector checked each finished chair, which is quality _____, and 24 chairs a month still came back faulty, a rate of _____ per cent. The workshop then trained every worker to check their own stage as they went, which is quality _____. Returns fell to 8 a month, a rate of _____ per cent, so 16 fewer chairs have to be replaced. That saving is one reason good quality _____ costs.
Control against assurance
Tap the TWO statements that are TRUE.
- Quality control checks products for faults at the end of production.
- Quality assurance builds quality in at every stage to prevent faults.
- Good quality always increases waste and returns.
- Quality does not matter for services, only for goods.
- In quality assurance, only one inspector is responsible for quality.
Control or assurance?
Decide which approach to quality each business is using.
- At the end of the line, an inspector checks every finished bike for faults. Which approach is this?
- A cafe trains all staff to follow the same recipe and hygiene standards at every step. Which approach is this?
- A firm keeps getting products returned as faulty. What is the best long-term response?
Explain and justify
Explain the difference between quality control and quality assurance, and explain why good quality is important to a business.
- Explain what quality control is
- Explain what quality assurance is
- Give one way the two approaches differ
- Explain one benefit of good quality to the business