Quality‐Strategy and Quality‐Management Connections

Quality will continue to be an issue to the business community in the 1990s. Firms facing the changing demands from their customer groups as well as from their competitors must come to terms as to what “quality” means to there overall business in order to achieve it through their strategies and operating systems. This article looks at two basic areas of this quality concern: the quality‐strategy connection and the quality‐management connection. Each firm′s approach to quality should be unique. The dilemma is matching the firm′s competences and abilities with its customers′ needs within its competitive market. This dilemma can be overcome by providing equal attention to design quality and conformance quality to ensure the strongest link possible between quality and strategy. Then use the Quality‐Management connection to develop a strong customer orientation, integrate quality goals and facilitating mechanisms throughout the process, and focus on prevention of non‐conformance.