Quality feature
A quality characteristic is a property of a commodity which (together with others) defines the quality of the commodity or a "characteristic that contributes to the quality of a unit". Colloquially, quality features are often understood to mean the extraordinary or outstanding qualitative features that distinguish a good from others and are therefore decisive for sales success. By definition, however, they mean completely all characteristics. They are almost always closely related to their intended use and are therefore product-dependent and often very similar to one another.
Role of quality characteristics
Quality features are the focus of quality management because they are the goal of all processes and products. Often quality features are also test features on which the quality of the product or process is assessed. The quality of various products and processes is described by characteristics that are assessed by sellers and buyers. The characteristics that are subjectively ascribed to the respective good by the observer are considered. Goods can be differentiated in ascending order of quality between “the good does not fulfill the intended purpose” up to the “good quality”, which is commonly used in parlance, i.e. “the good has all the required characteristics and therefore fulfills the purpose completely”. The lower limit of quality would be described as “fit for use”.
Possible quality features for the consideration could be e.g. B. be:
- Utility
- The good must fulfill the stated purpose
- Additional benefit
- The good must enable additional benefits
- Furnishing
- The farm has comfortable and in good design be equipped
- reliability
- This is the probability with which a product will show malfunctions or defects after a certain period of time
- Norm justice
- This is about the fulfillment of technical standards
- durability
- Technical durability describes the frequency of use until the good becomes inoperable; the economic durability determines the economic useful life
- Customer service
- How good and how fast is the customer service
- aesthetics
- This highly subjective property tells how the product feels, sounds, tastes, etc. and what it looks like
- Quality image
- This is the common belief about quality.
The features that the viewer pays attention to, can be very different here, since customers z. B. will pay more attention to features such as durability (service life, repair costs) and utility (functions, performance, operation), as well as aesthetics or service, and manufacturers, on the other hand, will pay more attention to manufacturability or legal provisions, as well as the reliability and accuracy of the machines .
Furthermore, quality features play a major role in the product life cycle of the corresponding product. They are designed and implemented in the individual phases, especially in product development and design , in the production process and in recycling at the end of the useful life.
Feature types
A distinction can be made between four types of characteristics, the quantitative characteristics, which have a classifying and characterizing character and which fall under continuous and discrete characteristics, and qualitative characteristics, which contain ordinal and nominal characteristics. This means that some features have a ranking and can be differentiated into different levels, such as B. "small", "medium" and "large" (ordinal features), but others have no valuation and are on an equal footing, such as "yellow" or "blue" and "female" or "male" (nominal features). A special case of nominal features is the distinction between "true / false" or "high quality / not high quality" as an alternative feature with a reserve of values, which can often occur. Discrete features can assume a countable number of features (e.g. number of lines in word processing programs) and continuous features can assume any value in a range (interval) (e.g. temperature). The qualitative or non-quantitative features are sometimes also referred to as attribute features. However, the quantitative characteristics are preferred as far as possible (e.g. instead of “toxic”, the specification of a toxic concentration).
In addition, different features can also be grouped together in feature groups, which can certainly overlap. Examples of this would include: reliability features, safety features, or environmental features.
In order to analyze quality characteristics, for example, the eight dimension of quality concept by David Garavin is used.
Customer-critical quality features
The customer-critical quality features correspond to the key elements of quality and play an important role in the customer's decision to sell. They are the entirety of all product and service features. In the area of quality management, it is important to make these quality features measurable by means of target values, tolerances and measurement conditions, to label and secure them, as well as the associated quality-capable processes. The customer-critical quality features are distinguished between product-related features ( image , range , reliability, etc.) and service -related features ( customer advice, delivery time, financing, warranties, etc.). The customer's point of view is decisive for the weighting of the individual characteristics. Customer surveys, customer data, complaint evaluations, warranty cases, etc. can be used to identify customer-critical features.
Mix of quality features
The quality features are sometimes very closely related to one another, but can also sometimes contradict one another very strongly. As a result, the same quality requirements cannot be defined for all products on the market , but individual quality features must be assigned to each product. So they are very product-dependent. As a rule, this creates a product-specific, balanced mix of quality features. For example, the following mix of quality features according to ISO 9126 would be considered for software :
- Functionality: This means how precisely and appropriately the software works and its security.
- Reliability: That means how well developed the software is. It also depends on their recoverability and fault tolerance.
- Usability: Means how easy or difficult the software is to use, learn and understand. The attractiveness is also reflected below.
- Efficiency: How fast does software work and what is its consumption behavior?
- Maintainability: This means the stability, testability and analyzability of the software, but also its changeability.
- Probability: Is the software interchangeable and adaptable and how do you install it?
In all of the areas mentioned, their respective conformity also plays a role. The targeted design and implementation of these features is called quality policy.
literature
- Gerd F. Kamiske , Gunnar Umbreit: Quality management - a multimedia introduction . Fachbuchverlag in Leipzig, Carl-Hanser-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-446-22509-9 , p. 14.
- Gerhard Linß: Training - Quality Management . Fachbuchverlag Leipzig in Carl-Hanser-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-446-42621-3 .
- Attila Oess: Total Quality Management - The holistic quality strategy . 3rd edition, Gabler-Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-409-33623-0
Web link
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quality feature , Duden website , 2016, accessed on May 3, 2016.
- ↑ a b quality feature, website of qz-online , November 24, 2011, accessed on May 3, 2016.
- ↑ Quality feature , caq4 website , accessed on May 3, 2016.
- ↑ Characteristic types and characteristic scales, website by Mathe Brinkmann , November 17, 2012, accessed on May 6, 2016.
- ↑ a b Quality features , caq4 website , accessed on May 6, 2016
- ↑ Quality Critical Features , caq4 website , accessed on May 6, 2016
- ↑ Quality features of software, website of the Enzyklopädie der Wirtschaftsinformatik , October 6, 2013, accessed on May 7, 2016