What is Quality?
The literal meaning of quality means “the degree of excellence”. It simply means that whenever we compare any 2 things for examples, when we go to buy something, we always compare those things. Whichever object we think is better than the other, we go ahead and buy it.
So, the degree of measurement when two similar things are compared is called as the quality of that object. For example, a wooden table will obviously be better than a plastic table because wood is more durable than plastic and would not break as easily as a plastic table might. Therefore, this makes the quality of a wooden table better than that of the plastic table.
This was the meaning of quality in simple terms but in our daily life quality and quality assessment is done for the simplest as well as for the most complex object also. We find quality everywhere that is, in food, clothes, accessories, while buying property, etc.
In fact, nowadays even a human being and his skills are measured in terms of quality skills or if that person can contribute qualitatively to any company he would be working for. That’s the importance of quality and it should be after all we would not be living a satisfactory life without having quality in it.
Is Quality Assurance Necessary?
Quality assurance is no doubt necessary as a qualitative product is always a desired result of the entire manufacturing procedure. Therefore, the output of any such tedious process should have a certain well-defined quality.
There is a standard set up by International Organization for Standardization which is non-governmental organization with more than 162 nations as members. This organization does the work of setting up the quality standards of each and every product.
This is basically done to help a customer identify a quality product and choose this product over a non-quality product. There is an Indian organization also which is named as the Bureau of Indian Standards which also does the similar work like ISO to give a quality mark to a certain product. This ark is known as the ISI mark.
In the Business sector, quality plays a very important or rather a very crucial role. There are often 2 or more companies manufacturing the same stuff. Let’s fore example, take an ice cream. There are so many different companies which produce and supply ice cream.
But still we eat or rather prefer to eat the ice cream manufactured by a specific company. Here, we decide the quality of an ice cream on the basis of its taste. We would try and taste different ice creams produced by different companies and ultimately select the one which tastes better to us.
This is how it works in most of the sectors for business. Customers will always compare and choose the product which they like or which they think has a better quality than other company’s products.
Therefore, it can be said that different manufacturing companies always have some competition to make better quality products than the rival company. This in turn gives a better quality product to the customer.
There are many sectors where quality assurance is important. Another such sector is the chemical or pharmaceutical laboratory. Here, quality of the chemicals being used as well ass the glassware to measure and handle the chemicals should all have a standard quality.
According to the BIS and the ISO, there are different standards set up to handle and work on a chemical in the laboratory which requires a different set of environments as well as experience to work with the hazardous chemicals.
For example, the glassware and other measuring flasks of a laboratory are all tested for their quality. Now here, by quality it means that a measuring flask of 10 ml is cross checked to confirm that it will hold only 10 ml of any given liquid.
Therefore, a flask holding 9.9 ml or even 10.1 ml of the liquid will be declared as a non-quality product and therefore, will be discarded. This is done because in a laboratory it is very essential to measure the proper amount of these hazardous liquids as even a drop more than the required quantity can lead to a disaster.
Such is the importance of quality in the chemical laboratories and the respected manufacturing companies. Quality assurance is also done in banking and other financial institutes.
We must have heard the word Audit being mostly done by an external officer who will come to the company and cross-check your files and work and on that basis will give the company a grade or a rank.
This rank decides whether the work they are doing or their strategy is qualitative or not. This mark also decides whether they are following all the rules mentioned in the Guidelines for Ethical Work Proceedings.
The Audit is nowadays done in almost all companies, banks and small-scale manufacturing companies where it is tested if they are following all the legally mentioned procedures of manufacturing and processing and also to rank them on the basis of the quality of their work.
Conclusion
Nowadays due to excessive competition and increasing population, there is a high demand for skilled and knowledgeable employees.
Therefore, as the technology evolves, we humans should also evolve and thus, improve the quality of our work and contribute qualitatively to the society as well as our jobs and life.
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