Symbiosis Center for Infomation Technology

Quality a Buzzword

Quality in Daily Life

Quality has been an age-old concern: The discerning customer in shops and market-places has applied ‘quality techniques’,prodding and turning fruits and vegetables testing for firmness, freshness and fitness for the purpose of consumption. If the product was not adequate the purchase would not take place. In the hustle and bustle of cattle markets farmers argued and bartered over the fitness of animals for breeding, dairy farming or consumption, providing evidence for their case by inspection against criteria learned from their forefathers. Those shoppers and farmers passed on their knowledge to their children, and similarly it was passed on to their children’s children. I too learned the principles of inspection and learning from my mother as she scrutinized clothes and footwear, fruits and vegetables in our town market. Eager market traders would get short shrift from her if clothes had weak stitching, zips got stuck when zipping, fruits were marked and bruised or vegetables appeared old and unpalatable. The issue of quality of goods and services is not new. Throughout history society has demanded that providers of goods and services should meet their obligations. As long ago as 1700 BC King Hammurabi of Babylon introduced the concept of product quality and liability into the building industry of the time by declaring: …if a building falls into pieces and the owner is killed then the builder shall be put to death. If the owner’s children are killed then the builders’ children shall be put to death.