WHAT IS QUALITY? BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED)

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED) 10. WHAT IS QUALITY?

 

A Defining quality STAYING IN THE LEAD MEANS CONTINUALLY RAISING THE BAR In 1980, a television documentary in the US entitled If Japan Can, Why Can’t We? Announced that it had discovered the secret of Japanese competitive success: quality. Japanese companies were successfully dominating world markets because they a quality system that allowed them to produce better products than their US rivals. What was more, the documentary said, the Japanese had learned this Note: Specifications are referred to informally as specs. B Quality in manufacturing Gordon Greer is head of quality at a car component company: ‘The design for each component embodies the intentions of its designer. So conformity to specification means putting these intentions into practice when we make the components. Put another way, this is elimination of variation. C Quality in services Serena Togliatti is customer relations manager at a large bank: ‘In services, there is a parallel situation to the one in manufacturing. The service received by the customer must be exactly what is planned and intended, and annoying mistakes, for example in their accounts, must be avoided. EXERCISES 10.1 Look at A and B opposite and answer the questions. Which expression refers to: 1. the idea of following a designer’s intentions? 2. the work of making sure that the principles of quality are applied? 3. approaching quality in a logical way? 10.2 Complete the table with words from A, B and C opposite and related forms. Put a stress mark in front of the stressed syllable in each word or more than one syllable. (The first one has been done for you.) Now use correct forms of the expression above and opposite to replace the underlined words and phrases in this memo from the head of package holiday company.

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