The impact of product quality on the performance of a manufacturing company

Abstract

The study is an investigation on the impact of product quality on the performance of a tech-manufacturing company and was conducted at a manufacturing company which reported high Non-Product Conformance Costs between years 2014 — 2017. Total Quality Management is an approach of engaging in business through maximization of company's competitiveness and continually improving the quality of products and services, people and the environment. An increase in operational productivity might increase current profitability but also expose the company to risks if resources like machines and employees are over utilized. The elements of product quality are thus examined qualitatively to gain an in depth understanding of the meanings ascribed to the ratings of the components of product quality in 14 questions, five Likert scale questionnaire. A total of 14 participants were sufficient to reach the point of saturation in this study. The study concludes that the market and company performance of the company are indeed positively impacted by product quality. There is a strong relationship between the product quality and market performance. Elements of product quality such as leadership, accountability, resources, subcontractors, company culture, ownership, skills, knowledge, experience can positively or negatively impact the market and performance of a company based on the majority 5 (43%) respondents whom have worked for 10 years in the company. The impact of product quality can be reflected through growth, sustainability on the market and business profitability. Thus, manufacturing companies are recommended to pursue superior product quality as a driver of market and company performance. In addition and adoption of a bottom-up quality approach would benefit the company studied in terms of creating an organisation wide culture of quality and concern about company performance. Future studies need to apply a quantitative approach to capture a large sample and even compare two or more branches of a multinational company to understand the underlying differences in quality approaches.