Quality management – Vocabulary and Phrases
quality management – the work of making sure that the principles of quality are applied
Quality Management, enables companies to better address regulatory compliance and risk mitigation.
fitness of the design/to fit the design – how good a design is for the purpose of the product it relates to
After this testing, the fitness of the design can be evaluated.
conformity to specification/to conform to… – to follow a designer's intentions
Base and self fabrics are laid up and alignment is checked to ensure conformity to specifications.
specs – specifications
You can view a listing of all the specs by visiting https://www.openid.net/specs/.
to satisfy customer needs – to keep the customer happy
A thorough analysis of the situation in which the firm finds itself serves as the basis for identifying opportunities to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs.
continual improvement/to improve continually – a process or productivity improvement tool intended to have a stable and consistent growth and improvement of all the segments of a process or processes.
The central mission of the NIST Laboratory Program is to improve continually the U.S. system of measurement and standards needed by the public, industry, and science.
kaizen – a method of running a company which tries to encourage continuous improvement in its products, staff, management etc.
Every team has goals that give meaning and substance to the principle of kaizen.
TQM – Total Quality Management
JIT – Just-in-time
to benchmark, benchmarking – to use a company's good performance as a standard by which to judge the performance of other companies of the same type
British Steel have benchmarked themselves against the best operations anywhere in the world.
competitive benchmarking – looking outside the company at how other companies in the same industry do things
Competitive benchmarking examines the products, services and processes of competitors and then compares this information to a company's own internal operations data.
reliability – the quality of being dependable
Reliability has to do with the quality of measurement
goodwill – the value that a business has in addition to the value of its assets. It includes things such as the good reputation that a business has, the names of its products and the good relations it has with its customers.
The company believes the economic recession has damaged the financial value of the goodwill related to most of its recent acquisitions.
defect – a shortcoming, fault, or imperfection
That interpretation is an unfortunate defect of our lack of information
external audit – is an audit professional who performs an audit on the financial statements of a company, government, individual, or any other legal entity or organization, and who is independent of the entity being audited.
There will be an interesting seminar on how internal and external audits work together.
internal audit – when the employees of a company are hired to assess and evaluate its system of internal control.
We carry out a full internal audit once a year.
to audit/auditors – an official examination of a person's or organization's accounts by an expert, to check that they are true and honest
An audit of the company showed accumulated losses of $1,5 billion.
sell-by date – the last date that a product, especially food, should be sold
This champagne should be drunk soon after it is released, but some wine merchants have been keeping it past itssell-by date.
customer allegiance/loyalty – dedication and devotion of a customer to a brand or company
Building customer loyalty will be a lot easier if you have a loyal workforce-not at all a given these days.
to fall below customer's expectations – not to meet their expectations
to exceed customer's expectations – to go beyond in quantity, degree, rate, etc.:
word-of-mouth – passing of information by verbal means, especially recommendations, but also general information, in an informal, person-to-person manner.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing, or WOMM, is a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities that companies undertake to generate personal recommendations as well as referrals for brand names, products and services.
word-of-mouth marketing – a term used in the marketing and advertising industry to describe activities that companies undertake to generate personal recommendations as well as referrals for brand names, products and services.
The success of word-of-mouth marketing depends on quality customer service and quality product, consistently.
customer retention – keeping customers
customer defection – desertion from allegiance, loyalty, duty
to reduce churn – to decrease the percentage of customers who can change suppliers or who stop using the service altogether each year
Wireless service providers are having some success in reducing customer service churn and complaint rates, but they still have significant challenges ahead.
data mining – analyzing large amounts of data about customers held on computer in order to get information about them that is not immediately available or obvious
Data-mining tools allow marketing departments to identify groups of customers and develop highly targeted mail campaigns.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
target group – the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to.
A very traditional approach would be to define a target group in terms of demographics.
to put sb on hold – in or into a state of temporary interruption in a telephone connection
I'm putting you on hold to answer another call.
to cut off the caller – to stop suddenly; discontinue
You shouldn't cut off people who call in good faith.
to handle complaints – to manage, deal with, or be responsible for
The Consumer Council handled the complaint with speed and efficiency
warranty – a written promise that a company gives to a customer, stating that it will repair or replace a product they have bought if it breaks during a certain period of time
If the set isn't under warranty, repairs by a registered dealer could cost up to 25% more.
serviceability – the quality of being able to provide good service
Higher serviceability improves availability and reduces service cost
value for money – when a product or service deliver on their promise
Charter flights give the best value for money.
after sales care – assistance given by the company to a customer after the purchase of their product
Masas After Sales Care is unrivalled and envied throughout the Industry.
zero defects – a quality standard with a four-fold methodology: quality is conformance to requirements, defect prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction, zero defects is the quality standard, quality is measured in monetary terms.
The use of slogans such as zero defects to spur quality may lead to a de-emphasis of the tried-and-true tools and culture associated with successful continuous improvement.