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Part Three
Planning and control
Table 17.2 Variable and attribute measures for quality characteristics
Quality
characteristic
Variable
Acceleration
and braking
characteristics
from test bed
Number of
blemishes
visible on car
Average time
between faults
Car
Attribute
Is the ride quality
satisfactory?
Variable
Number of journeys
which actually arrived
at the destination
(i.e. didn’t crash!)
Number of seats not
cleaned satisfactorily
Airline journey
Attribute
Was the food
acceptable?
Functionality
Appearance
Is the colour to
specification?
Is the crew
dressed smartly?
Reliability
Is the reliability
satisfactory?
Proportion of
journeys which
arrived on time
Number of times
service innovations
lagged competitors
Were there any
complaints?
Durability
Life of the car
Is the useful life as
predicted?
Generally, is the
airline updating
its services in a
satisfactory
manner?
Recovery
Time from fault
discovered to
fault repaired
Is the serviceability
of the car
acceptable?
Proportion of service
failures resolved
satisfactorily
Do customers feel
that staff deal
satisfactorily with
complaints?
Did customers feel
that the staff were
helpful (yes or no)?
Contact
Level of help
provided by
sales staff
(1 to 5 scale)
Did customers feel
well served (yes or
no)?
The extent to which
customers feel well
treated by staff
(1 to 5 scale)
has no objective quantified measure. Yet operations with high customer contact, such as
airlines, place a great deal of importance on the need to ensure courtesy in their staff. In cases
like this, the operation will have to attempt to measure customer perceptions of courtesy.
Variables
Attributes
Variables and attributes
The measures used by operations to describe quality characteristics are of two types:
variables and attributes. Variable measures are those that can be measured on a continuously
variable scale (for example, length, diameter, weight or time). Attributes are those
which are assessed by judgement and are dichotomous, i.e. have two states (for example,
right or wrong, works or does not work, looks OK or not OK). Table 17.2 categorizes some
of the measures which might be used for the quality characteristics of the car and the airline
journey.
Step 3 – Set quality standards
When operations managers have identified how any quality characteristic can be measured,
they need a quality standard against which it can be checked; otherwise they will not know
whether it indicates good or bad performance. The quality standard is that level of quality
which defines the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable. Such standards may well
be constrained by operational factors such as the state of technology in the factory, and the
cost limits of making the product. At the same time, however, they need to be appropriate to
the expectations of customers. But quality judgements can be difficult. If one airline passenger
out of every 10,000 complains about the food, is that good because 9,999 passengers out of
10,000 are satisfied? Or is it bad because, if one passenger complains, there must be others
who, although dissatisfied, did not bother to complain? And if that level of complaint is
similar for other airlines, should it regard its quality as satisfactory?