COURSE OVERVIEW:
If ‘Quality’ is the end point, then ‘Quality Management’ is the approach and process for getting there.
Quality management ensures that an organisation, product or service is consistent. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore, uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. What a customer wants and is willing to pay for it determines quality. It is written or unwritten commitment to a known or unknown consumer in the market.
Our understanding of the word quality can and arguably should be associated with achieving or exceeding expectations, meeting requirements that the customer had not actually stipulated, but once offered become the expectation of everyone. Providing products/services that are only fit for purpose may mean that a company is placed in a position of declining market share if its competitors are exceeding the expectations of the market place.
The first part of this course clarifies our understanding of the rather abstract concepts of both “Quality” and “Quality Management”. The integrated nature of the elements of Quality Management and the background and history of Quality Management.
In the second part we will establish that individuals differ in the level of information they require to do the right things right and that this has led to the development of principles, rules and instructions. With this in mind, we will approach the meaning of quality from different perspectives. We then will establish that quality is primarily about satisfying the needs of stakeholders and will proceed to describe the stakeholders and their individual needs.
In the third part we will examine various definitions of quality, identify the factors that characterise the quality of products and services and address several misconceptions where quality is perceived as being separate to or inclusive of price, cost, reliability etc.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:
· What is Quality?
· What is Quality Management?
· The background and history of Quality Management
· The principles which are central to the practice of Quality Management
· The development of Quality Thinking?
· The Craftsmanship Era
· The Standardisation, Mass Production and Quality Assurance Era
· The Quality Control Era
· The Total Quality Management (TQM) Era
· The Standards and Awards Era
· The Initiatives Era
· Are they principles or prescription?
· Satisfying the needs, requirements and expectations of stakeholders
· The stakeholders: the customer, the internal customer, the external supply chain, society, employees, suppliers and investors
· The internal customer-supplier chain
· The criteria used by stakeholders to judge organisation effectiveness or success
· The characteristics of quality
· The classification of products and services
· Quality and price
· Quality and design
· Quality and cost
· High quality and low quality; poor quality and good quality
· Quality characteristics
· Quality, reliability and safety
· The determinants of product quality
· Quality parameters
· Dimensions of quality
COURSE DURATION:
The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.
COURSE DELIVERY:
Purchase and download course content.
ASSESSMENT:
A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.
CERTIFICATION:
Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.