What Is Quality? By: Vince Elliott How do internationally known quality gurus answer this question? Vincent F. Elliott is the founder, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Elliott Affiliates Ltd. of Hunt Valley, Maryland. For more information, visit www. EALtd.com. He is widely recognized as the leading authority in the design and utilization of best practice, performance-driven tech-niques for janitorial outsourc-ing and ongoing manage-ment. Elliott is also the founder of the Chemical Free Cleaning Network (CFCN). More information about that initiative can be found at www.CFCN.info. I for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Quality . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Consultation . If you walk through a chemical pro-duction facility anywhere in the world today, you will see containers of materi-als that have virtually identical ingredi-ents and standards. If you walk through a building and see the cleaning done, you will also see consis-tency in the standardization of equipment and methods. The processes, strategies and tools for assur-ing quality may have changed over time, with automation and innovation, but basic customer expectations for quality have been fairly constant. The focus during the last few years on estab-lishing standards for quality coincides with the expansion of the idea of sustainability. This has created a global confluence of con-sumers’ priority for quality standards. The word “quality” is often used to communi-cate the relative worth of things in such phrases Defining quality is like walking a tightrope: Depending on who you ask, quality can either be about the product or service offered or the end result of a satisfied customer. as “good quality,” “bad quality” and the growing idea that “quality means sustainability.” This idea is searching for a standard, and each industry organization is advocating its own certifi-cation, standard or model for describing “quality – sustainability” as a means of recognizing “good” products, companies or people who can be certi-fied by them. 28 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • December 2011
CMM – Archives Dec 2011: 28
