INTRODUCTION

In todays ever changing world, quality in all major aspects of our daily lives and activities
has been a factor in sustaining human life and its environment. The natural resources
around us has been made sufficient enough in quality to sustain human life and the quality
of man-made resources is been improved on a daily basis to satisfy the needs and
requirements of people. The quality of all goods, services and processes in all industrial
sectors ranging from manufacturing to health, engineering , textile, construction and other
industrial sectors is what has sustained man and led him to further improvement and
innovations in these respective sectors.
The term Way of Life was originally used by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870-
1937). The term generally refers to the manner of conducting oneself or the state of affairs
in one's life. (Dictionary.com). People deal with the issue of quality continually in their daily
lives. We concern ourselves with quality when shopping, eating in a restaurant, and making
a major purchase such as an automobile, a home, or a personal computer. Perceived quality
is a major factor by which most people make distinctions when purchasing items. Whether
we express these thoughts openly or keep them in the back of our minds. We all apply a
number of criteria when making a purchase. The extent to which a purchase meets these
criteria determines its quality in our eyes. With this basic introduction, we realize that
quality has been a major factor in the way we live our lives.
This paper focuses on how the quality and continuous improvement in quality of goods and
services has positively affected us in the way we live our lives today.
An Overview and History of Quality
Quality is a very important aspect of business success. It affects everything from employee
performance to customer satisfaction. It is also a very vital part of our daily lives. It affects
every part of our from the food we take to the way we communicate with each other.
Quality as a subject is an in depth one, therefore it is necessary to be clear on what is meant
by the term Quality. Quality has been defined in various ways by different schools of
thought based on the different spheres of activity they are involved in. Some of which are
highlighted below;
The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its
ability to satisfy stated or implied needs (British standards Institution; 1991)
Fitness for purpose (Defoe and Juran; 2010)
Conformance to requirements (Crosby; 1979)
Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services, people, processes, and
environments that meet or exceeds expectations and help produce superior value.
(Goetsch and Davis; 2010)
A predictable degree of uniformity and dependability, at low cost and suited to the
market (Edward Deming)
The institute of medicine also defines quality as the degree to which health services
for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes
and are consistent with current professional knowledge. (IOM; 2001)
A degree of excellence (Oxford dictionary)
All these definitions of quality by different authors are customer driven. They focus their
definitions mainly on meeting and exceeding the customer requirements.
As a result of trying to achieve a higher degree of excellence, organisations began to adopt
quality management as a methodology to their objective and satisfy customer
requirements. Its majorly involves identifying, understanding, agreeing and planning to
achieve these requirements.
Quality management is the approach and process to reach the end point of a product or
service i.e. to arrive at the desired level of satisfaction of the customers.
Brief History of Quality and Quality Management
In ancient times before the industrial revolution, services were less sophisticated and the
person providing the service dealt directly with customers. Craftsmen mostly attracted
customers through mouth advertising and quality was very personal due to lack of far
distribution systems. It was important to achieve and retain a local reputation for good work
at a fair price.
Later on, with the formation of factories and increasing automation in the early 1900s, work
became de skilled and repetitive. Factory works required skilled traditional craftsmen but
they were not sufficient enough so there was a high intake of semi-skilled and un-skilled
workers. In order to monitor these workers, factory owners decided to employ inspector
who check the outputs of operations and decide whether the product is good or to be
scraped or returned to the manufacturing operation for a re-work. Thus, the responsibility
of the quality of products was put in the hands of the quality department that employs the
inspector
From 1930-1950, quality control became the major issue. Workers gave up attempts to
correct things that were wrong with the operation and began to disassociate themselves
from the success of the organisation. The issue was to determine how best to embed quality
into the production process and not by inspecting an already made product. In the early
1920s, Walter A Shewhart studied how the manufacturing process could be monitored in
such a way as to prevent sub- standard items being produced and in 1924 he invented the
control chart. He later published the first book on quality control in 1931 Economic control
of quality Manufactured product(Shewhart,1980) and his work forms the basis of statistical
process control today.
Dr William Edwards Deming, a student of Walter later taught the Japan how to apply the
statistical method s and team approach to quality improvement. This has transformed Japan
into market leaders of every form of manufactured goods. He has been referred to as the
father of the third industrial revolution. The focus of this era was to replace inspection with
more informative process control system which aimed to reduce variation in outputs and
deliver more consistency by focusing more on inputs.
Also in the early 1950s, Dr Joseph Juran participated in the quality movement in Japan and
began to focus on the management of quality. He believed executive and senior
management were responsible for quality problems. He eventually published The Quality
Control Handbook (Defoe and Juran 2010) which focuses on management and planning
techniques as well as the technical aspects of quality.
Over the years, there was the need to standardize the principle of quality management.
BS5750 and ISO 9000 quality systems standards have been the most successful elements of
this approach.
The final trends have been the appearance of initiatives such as lean and six sigma. These
tools and strategies for process improvements have around since the 1990s but have
become more prominent due to aggressive marketing from consultancies. (Graeme 2011).
Quality in Our Daily Lives
Quality has become a way of life for us all. It has affected virtually all areas of our lives and
has helped prolong and sustain human life through different management practices. Below
are few highlighted areas of life in which the adoption of quality management has affected
us positively.
Food quality assurance has gained importance in the past few years with the food industry
also following the quality monitoring and management system as per strict guidelines.
Quality guarantee has become a necessary component of the food service business with the
adoption of analysis and control systems for food safety. Hence, anybody, who is getting in
to food industry or is already in to it, needs to know about the various techniques that are
meant to assure the quality of food as per the laid down norms and procedures. Some
reasons for the implementation of food quality assurance programs are
Customer expectations - Today the customers have become more demanding and
knowledgeable. They are more concerned about the ingredients of the food
products and hence maintaining optimum quality standards in food industry has
become very necessary.
Environmental concerns - Nowadays, people are more concerned about the
environment. Environment protection laws have also become stringent. Hence,
employing environmental friendly methods in the food industry has become
necessary. QA plays a big role in all this.
Organic Foods There is more demand for organic foods because people have
realized the ill effects of in-organic foods like damage to the environment and
health. Hence quality monitoring and guarantee ensures that the chemicals are
within the specified limits in any food product.
Technology - With the development in technology, various methods for food
processing and other food related activities have emerged. These methods provide
safer and higher quality food to the customers. Today all organizations related to
food have to ensure good quality systems to compete in the market. Customer
expectations - Today the customers have become more demanding and
knowledgeable. They are more concerned about the ingredients of the food
products and hence maintaining optimum quality standards in food industry has
become very necessary.
Environmental concerns - Nowadays, people are more concerned about the
environment. Environment protection laws have also become stringent. Hence,
employing environmental friendly methods in the food industry has become
necessary. QA plays a big role in all this.
Organic Foods There is more demand for organic foods because people have
realized the ill effects of in-organic foods like damage to the environment and
health. Hence quality monitoring and guarantee ensures that the chemicals are
within the specified limits in any food product.
Technology - With the development in technology, various methods for food
processing and other food related activities have emerged. These methods provide
safer and higher quality food to the customers. Today all organizations related to
food have to ensure good quality systems to compete in the market.

There are many existing international quality institutes testing food products in order to
indicate to all consumers which are higher quality products. These institutes exist and
function very efficiently in developed countries. Secondly, these quality standards targets
mostly processed and packaged food.
Health care quality management departments within hospitals and other health care
facilities play an important role in developing, implementing and monitoring policies and
procedures that increase quality of patient care, decrease mortality rates and positively
impact the establishment's profitability.
Quality Criteria: According to Georgia State University's study, "The Assessment of Quality
Management Practices within the Health Care Industry," there are seven criteria that a
department should assess in considering overall health care quality. These are leadership,
customer focus, strategic planning, measurement, analysis and knowledge management,
process management, workforce focus, and results.
Affordability: It is crucial for the department to monitor the efficient use of the facility's
physical and staffing resources in order to be financially viable and offer affordable health
care services to the public.
Mortality: A health care facility must strive to decrease premature and preventable deaths.
Decreases in mortality rates set a facility above its competitors and indicate that the quality
management department is functioning effectively in the policies and procedures it has
developed to improve patient care.
Continuous quality improvement models have been put in place in order to provide cost
effective and quality health care.

In the construction sector, quality management has played a major role in the delivery
and use of standard building material for its required purpose.
Quality management in construction is the process of verifying that the project is built to
plan, that the differences allowable by industry standards and engineering practices have
been met and that the finished projects (and all phases to get there) meet with the quality
standards of the architect, engineer, owner, and general contractor. On construction
projects there might be dozens of subcontractors, all of which have specific responsibilities.
Project managers try to maintain high quality standards but they can't be everywhere at
once. Required inspections by cities and countries (as well as other jurisdictions, depending
on the project) help to ensure safety and code issues. In addition, a good general contractor
or developer will have on staff a Quality control person, someone who is responsible for
going through the building or project, ensuring compliance, and maintaining an on-going list
of corrective items that must be accomplished before the contractor who installed it is paid
or leaves the job.
References
1. Defoe, J.A. and Juran, J.M. (2010) Jurans Quality Handbook: The Complete guide to
Performance Excellence. McGraw-Hill, Ney York
2. Crosby, P.B. (1979) Quality is free. McGraw Hill, London
3. Goetsch, D.L. & davis, S.B. (2010) Quality Management for Organisational excellence:
Introduction to Total Quality. Pearson, NJ.
4. Graeme (2010), Quality Management. First Edition. Graeme Knowles & Ventus Publishing
APS.
5. The Importance of Health Care Quality Management Departments.
eHow http://www.ehow.com/facts_7583561_importance-care-quality-management-
departments.html#ixzz2TlPmMuYK
6. Institute of Medicine (2001). Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. Washington
DC: National Academy Press.
7. BSI (1991) BS4778 Quality Vocabulary. Availability, reliability and maintainability terms.
Guide to concepts and related definitions. BSI.
8. Deming W.E. (1982) Out Of the Crisis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
9. Deming W.E. (1990) The New Economics. MIT CAES, Cambridge, MA.
10. Shewart W.A. (1980) Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product. ASQC Quality
Press;NY.