RE: FW: Has product quality at large begun to go downhill?

["Mack, Wayne" <wayne.mack@pec.com>]

I believe Mr. Kleiner has asked a very interesting question.  I would suggest that product quality at large is immeasurable, but it can be deduced that product quality is unchanged.

Quality is determined by the user.  The quality of a specific product (or service) as evaluated by an individual is the aggregation of his evaluation of individual qualities.  Different users will give different weight to different qualities.  Also, the evaluation criteria of an individual will shift over time.  Finally, the products meeting a need change as well.  How would one compare a copy machine with carbon paper?  Did you ever spend half of a morning fixing a carbon paper jam?

Given the inherent complexity of product quality at large, I must conclude it is immeasurable at any point in time, and impossible to compare across time.  To answer Mr. Kleiner's question, we must not look at the end result, but rather at the process that produces the result.

Dr. Deming has emphasized that the consumer is, and needs to be,  part of the system that produces a good or service.  Dr. Juran, Dr. Kano, and many others have decribed approaches for understanding and presenting the needs and desires of users to the designers, developers, manufacturers, and providers of goods and services, yet even basic market research is a foreign concept to most businesses.  Instead of designing products to meet the needs of consumers, we live in a "Field of Dreams" world, build it and they will come.  We run around trying to build better mousetraps without understanding what "better" might mean.

If product quality is to improve, there must be a means for product designers to gain understanding of consumers' needs and desires.  Without this knowledge, changes to prduct design will have random affects on consumers quality evaluations.  Companies must view consumers as more than a source of funding and look at market research, i.e., look at ways of bringing consumers inside the product development and manufacture system.

Wayne Mack
Wayne.Mack@PEC.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Art Kleiner [SMTP:art@well.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, February 24, 2004 5:30 AM
> To:	den.list@deming.ces.clemson.edu
> Subject:	Re: FW: Has product quality at large begun to go downhill?
> 
> But if product quality MAY or MAY NOT be going down,
> then how would I investigate that issue?
> How would it be possible to tell with a little bit
> more empirical validity than just my (or anyone's)
> personal impression?
> 
> Yours, ArtK
>