DEFINING QUALITY

It was in the middle 1980s, in the midst of the competitive battle

between Japanese and US manufacturers that Garvin [1984] wrote his
seminal paper on defining what product quality is. In this paper he
describes five ways of defining quality:

 Transcendental quality has its roots in philosophy and can be

equated with the philosophical debate about beauty. Quality
describes a condition of innate excellence associated with a product
or act, and we recognize it when we see it.
 Product-based definitions have an economics root: it is because of
the mix of ingredients or the possession of certain attributes that a
product is perceived as being of good quality. High quality comes
at a high cost.
 User-based definitions enrich the economics view with the
marketing preoccupation with the needs of the user. In this
definition, it is the user's requirements and the satisfaction of these
requirements that result in a perception of quality. This view is
represented by Juran and Gryna's (1988) definition: 'quality is
fitness for use'. In this outlook, there is no need to exceed
customers' expectations.
 Value-based definitions suggest that the perception of quality is
akin to a value judgment: for example, the performance of a
product is acceptable given the low cost of the product.
 Manufacturing-based definitions describe quality from the
viewpoint of the industrial producer: this describes to which extent
a product matches the design specifications. It is often called
conformance quality.