Quality Uncertainty and Perception

It has been observed that the studies of quality are pursued in various disciplines like economics, quality management, and marketing science, and are seen isolated. The treatments imparted to these studies are also different and has the backdrop of discipline in which the work has been pursued. The nature of isolation is equally seen when quality uncertainty and perceived quality were pursued separately without showing any inkling that these can be complimentary. Economist and Nobel Laureate, Akerlof (1970), wrote a seminal piece "The market for lemons: quality uncertainty and market mechanism", where he described quality uncertainty due to information asymmetry. It refers to the fact that a party in a transaction may have more information than the other. This is information asymmetry. If the seller has more information than the buyer about the product quality, he/she may sell it, as if it is a high-quality product. In reality, it could be a low-quality product. The buyer does not have the information regarding the quality of the offered product. The market condition that led to this transaction is quality uncertainty due to information asymmetry.

First book to apply reliability engineering techniques on management issues of quality uncertainty and perception

1Introduction1.1Recent metrics for business performance1.2Quality pursued in various disciplines1.3Quality commonality and multidisciplinary approach1.4Management of quality uncertainty and perception2Quality uncertainty due to information asymmetry2.1Prelude to quality uncertainty2.2Information asymmetry and quality uncertainty2.3Examples of information asymmetry and quality uncertainty2.4Implications of asymmetric information2.5Product manufacturing and quality uncertainty2.6Causes of quality uncertainty due to information asymmetry3Perceived quality through time3.1Emergence of perceived quality3.2Factors of perceived quality3.3SERVQUAL as a metric of perceived quality3.4Marketing science approach to product-quality perception3.5Expected quality approach from information economics3.6Critical appraisal of existing approaches3.7Need of a robust approach4Quality uncertainty and quality perception4.1Theoretical background of probability and reliability engineering4.2System reliability4.3Success tree and failure tree method4.4Paradigm for mathematical modelling4.5Behaviour of asymmetry and quality uncertainty4.6Fault tree or success tree analysis4.7Market with multiple players4.8Computation of quality uncertainty and perception4.9Product life cycle and information asymmetry4.10Managerial implications and strategiesAppendix A Worksheets 1 and 25Root cause and failure analysis of quality uncertainty5.1Theoretical background of seven management tools5.2Cause-and-Effect methodology5.3An illustrative case of ball bearing5.4Root-cause analysis of quality uncertainty5.5Innovative method of failure analysis5.6Generic solutions5.7Contributions to the theory of quality uncertainty5.8Managerial implications of the root-cause methodAppendix B Worksheets 3 and 46Dynamics of quality perception6.1System dynamics methodology6.2Causal loop mapping of quality perception6.3Preliminary model, variables, data and analysis6.4Towards market dynamics6.5Quality perception and market dynamics6.6Observations from simulation runs6.7Evolving hierarchy of policies for quality management6.8Managerial implicationsAppendix C Worksheets 5 and 67Future directions of quality perceptionReferencesIndex

First book to apply reliability engineering techniques on management issues of quality uncertainty and perception
Using modern system dynamics techniques in marketing science