Steps to measure quality
Quality isn’t just about the final product – it’s about every step that leads to it. You can measure the quality of inputs and outputs, processes, the final product or service and the perception your customers have. You can use the steps below for anything you want to measure.
- Step01
Work out what quality looks like to your customers
Start by understanding what your customers care about and how they judge quality. Use their needs to define clear, measurable characteristics — whether that’s freshness, durability, accuracy, or customer experience.
- Step02
Set practical and relevant standards
Once you know what matters, decide what level of quality is good enough to meet (or exceed) customer expectations. Don’t aim higher than you need to – that can waste time and money without adding value. Focus on what counts.
- Step03
Measure and control to maintain quality
Check the inputs, processes and outputs that really impact quality. You don’t need to test everything – sample testing can be enough. Pay closer attention to high-value items or areas where problems are more likely to occur.
Find errors at the right time
If you have errors early in a process that aren’t caught until later, the work between where the error happens and where you catch it is wasted. Bring testing as close as possible to the step where the error could occur.
For example, a graphic design service might check both the brief and concept are right before going further. If they only check the final result with the customer, all the work beyond the concept could be wasted.
Here are some useful times to check quality:
- Before an expensive step in the process or a ‘point of no return’ – for example, checking ingredients before combining them and committing time and effort to cooking them.
- Immediately after a known ‘fail point’ – for example, if you’ve recently had problems with delivery, you might check that customers are now receiving their orders correctly.
- Immediately before passing your product on to your customer.
For example, you might notice the retailer you’re selling your product to is rejecting some of your items. You could check every return you receive and the reason why it’s been rejected.
You then classify the returns into two categories:
- Controllable returns – for example, due to problems with manufacture or packaging.
- Uncontrollable returns – for example, due to a weather event disrupting shipping.
You work on eliminating the quality issues causing the controllable returns. Checking for known manufacturing problems before packaging, and checking for known packaging problems before shipping, saves cost and improves your quality reputation with your customer.
Control processes to deliver quality
Day-to-day control of your processes helps you prevent problems and catch them when they happen, reducing risk and increasing profits. Once you have chosen your quality metrics, you can design your processes to meet your standards while staying efficient.
As well as measuring a pass or fail against your benchmarks, you can use measurements to spot trends and fix problems before they become too serious.
People are part of your quality plan
Once your business knows what the product or service should look like, everyone needs to understand and follow the measures in place. Consider:
- documenting processes and actions to ensure the knowledge is built up and passed on within the business
- building capability in your business by training and upskilling your employees
- setting up incentives to align employee efforts and signal how important quality is to your business.
Controlling outside processes
Controlling processes outside your business (such as at suppliers) is harder than controlling your own processes, but it can be important too.
You can think about how to explain the quality you need to your suppliers. You can put your requirements into your contracts, identifying key quality metrics that the suppliers need to meet – and set up incentives or penalties to support them.
For example, metrics could be:
- supplier to meet their delivery commitments 90% of the time
- no more than one in ten boxes to have defective items or packaging
- quality complaints to be addressed within 3 days.
Fix and prevent problems
Even with excellent quality control, problems can happen. If you discover a quality problem, you need to fix it.
Sometimes the problem is obvious, but other times you may need to do some troubleshooting. If you have a process map, it can help you visualise the steps in your process and decide what to investigate.
Fixing a problem involves:
- finding the root cause of the problem
- solving the problem
- checking the solution worked.
Document what went wrong
Document the things that have gone wrong, and how you fixed them. This helps you fix the problem if it happens again. Documentation can also free you from having only one person who knows how to fix a problem – a risk if they are unavailable or leave the company.
Prevent the problem from happening again
You might be able to prevent the problem from reoccurring. For example, by changing your process or building some sort of early warning into your process.
Focus on customer service
If the problem reaches your customer, your customer service will be part of the fix. Good service can keep your customer happy despite the problem. Bad service can make the problem worse.
Follow key steps to improve
These steps can help you improve quality. They’re a good overall framework for continuous improvement too:
- Plan – identify a change for improving your product/process quality. Define the important characteristics and how to measure them.
- Do – make the change (you could trial a major change on a small scale first).
- Study – examine the results. What did we learn? What went wrong?
- Act – use what you learned from the change to adjust the goal or broaden the learning until you meet the acceptable standard.
Communicate that quality is a priority
High quality goods and services can give you a competitive advantage worth marketing. Let your customers know that your offering is high quality in the ways they care about. This might involve focusing on the outcomes that make a difference to them, or on your points of difference over competitors.
For standard products and services, market comparisons can be useful – showing your product or service ranks well for reliability or another characteristic. Even without distinctive product quality, excellent customer service means customers can rely on you for help when they need it.
Communicating your focus on quality inside your business and across your network is important too. A clear understanding of your focus on quality and metrics helps workers and suppliers align themselves to your priorities.
For example, you might have a promise to replace faulty products within 48 hours. If the person in charge of your shipping understands the importance of this, they can take steps to help – like prioritising a replacement over standard orders, or picking a faster delivery method to ensure your business meets its promise.
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