Jennifer Paustenbaugh, president of a company that manufactures electronic components, has a number of questions concerning quality and quality costs. She has heard a few things about quality and has asked you to respond to the following:

1. What is meant by a quality product? Describe for me the dimensions that define quality.

2. What is the difference, if any, between a quality product and a quality service?

3. I have heard that quality costs are those costs incurred because poor quality may or does exist. Explain how these quality costs exist for each of the quality attributes or di¬

mensions that you described for me earlier.

4. Are there other dimensions of quality that exist besides those you listed? What about quality perception? Is this a dimension of quality? After all, it does cause costs. I re¬

cently ordered a significant advertising campaign to overcome some incorrect percep¬

tions about the quality of our products.

5. Yesterday, my quality manager told me that we need to redefine what we mean by a defective product. He said that conforming to specifications ignores the cost of prod¬

uct variability and that further reduction of product variability is a veritable gold mine—

just waiting to be mined. What did he mean?