David Garvin's Eight Dimensions Of Quality Essay

Today, there is no single universal definition of quality. However, the aim of quality products must have following characteristics, features or requirements, which defined by David Garvin (1987) in his eight dimensions of quality as follows:-

(1) Performance – What a customer expects it to do?
Performance refers to a product’s primary operating characteristics. For example, the performance of automobile, will include traits like acceleration, handling, cruising speed, and comfort. A quality product will perform as expected by the users, and as specified by the manufacturer. In the event of the products do not perform as buyers expect, buyers will be frustrated and disappointed. Worse still poor performing products get negative reviews, and lose sales and reputation.

(2)

Aesthetics aspect of a product is comparatively subjective in nature, and refers to its impact on the human sense, such as how it looks, feels, sounds, tastes, or smells, which clearly a matter of personal judgment, and a reflection of individual preference. Automobile manufacturers make sure that in additional to functional quality, the automobiles are also artistically attractive.

(8) Perceived quality – What sort of quality perception?
Perceived quality is the quality attributed to a good or service based on indirect measure, such as images, reputation, advertising, and brand name, where the inferences about quality rather the reality of itself. For example, Honda and Toyota automobiles are perceived to be high quality items if compared to local manufactures, such as Proton or Perodua.

Indeed meeting customer expectations is one of very challenging business. A given product or service has many customers, each with potentially different uses for the product and different definitions of quality. And, the most common measures of customer acceptance are as follows:-

(1) Fitness to use – How well the product performs for its intended