Quality is an important element in our daily lives as consumers both as individuals and as industrial organizations. It is one of the elements that determines where to procure a product or service. Most of us have a conceptual understanding of quality as relating to one or more desirable characteristics that a product or service should possess. We make our own judgment regarding the quality of purchased goods or services when we are satisfied or dissatisfied with them. If these goods or services satisfy us, we judge them to be something of quality. If we are not satisfied, we judge them to be lacking of quality. In other cases, we judge the quality of a product or service by comparing it explicitly or implicitly to something else in the context of our life experiences. While this conceptual understanding is certainly a useful starting point, we will give a more precise and useful definition of quality later in this unit as understanding and improving quality is essential to compete effectively in today's global market. We begin this section with a brief discussion of the differences between goods and services.
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