Marketing91

  • HOME
  • Marketing Concepts
    • Marketing
      • Retail Tutorials
      • Market Research
      • Customer Management
    • Strategy
    • Management
    • Advertising
    • Branding
    • Business
    • Finance
    • Sales
    • Career Guidance
  • Digital Concepts
    • Blogging
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Social Media Marketing
    • Facebook Marketing
    • Internet Marketing
    • Ecommerce
  • Brands
    • Marketing Mix of Brands
    • SWOT analysis of Brands
    • Brands Strategy Analysis
    • Business Models
    • Brand Competitors
    • TOP 10
  • Courses
Home » Operations Management » Critical To Quality (CTQ) Definition – Process and Benefits

Critical To Quality (CTQ) Definition – Process and Benefits

July 11, 2020 By Hitesh Bhasin Tagged With: Operations Management

Table of Contents

  • What is Critical to Quality?
  • What is Critical to Customers?
  • Example of Critical to Customers in a restaurant
  • Example of Critical to Quality in a restaurant
  • Critical to Quality Trees
  • Process of developing a CTQ Tree
    • 1) Identify the critical needs of the customers
    • 2) Convert these needs into a specific process parameter:
    • 3) Attach performance metrics to that factor, so that the deviations can be measured and controlled by the organization
  • Characteristics of CTQ
  • Benefits of CTQ
    • 1) Meets customer expectations
    • 2) Possibility to surpass expectations
    • 3) Elevates customer experience
    • 4) Enhances organization brand value
  • Prerequisites for the successful mapping of CTQs
    • 1) Data quality – correct, complete, relevant, unbiased
    • 2) Choosing critical performance metrics
    • 3) Product performance measures must be quantified
    • 4) Using Quality Function Deployment
    • 5) cross-functional cooperation
    • 6) Easy to understand documentation
  • Impacts of not identifying CTQs

What is Critical to Quality?

Critical to Quality is the conversion of Critical to Customers factors into certain measurable and controllable manufacturing and/or delivery processes.

These processes are internal to the management and due to their quantitative nature, the management can easily control them, measure deviations, if any and rectify these deviations to improve the customer experience.

Originally developed by Motorola in the 1980s, Six Sigma is a renowned set of management techniques that is very well received and implemented worldwide. It is a management approach that is based on data and statistics to ensure continuous improvement in manufacturing and business processes, products and services through eliminating errors. Critical to Quality is one such important parameter under Six Sigma.

What is Critical to Customers?

What is Critical to Quality

In order to understand Critical to Quality, we must first understand Critical to Customers. Let’s comprehend these concepts with the help of an example. E.g. You are a restaurateur. Your customers want the food that you serve to be good. Now the term ‘good’ is quite vague to define.

How would you, the entrepreneur, know what is ‘good’? How would you translate this ‘good’ into some tangible, measurable benchmarks that you can explain to the human resources working for you? How would you exercise control over this ‘good’? This job is done by concepts of Critical-To-Customers and Critical-To-Quality under the discipline of Six Sigma.

Example of Critical to Customers in a restaurant

Now, continuing with the above-mentioned example, it is a restaurant owner’s quest to understand what is the ‘good’ that his customers desire. This ‘good’ is nothing but certain product and service parameters that enhance the customers’ experience of having food in your restaurant. These would be the factors that would make the customers feel good. So, what would these factors or parameters be?

These parameters can be broadly classified as 1. Prompt Delivery 2. Palatable and Uniform taste 3. Piping hot food 4. Cleanliness in the restaurant and 5. Reasonable prices

All the above-mentioned factors must be present when a customer enters and orders food to make him feel good about the product and services that you offer. These are known as Critical to Customers.

Example of Critical to Quality in a restaurant

Now, in the same example that we have cited above, how would the restaurant owner convert the critical-to customer’s factors into measurable critical-to-quality processes? It would be done in the following manner:

Critical-To-Customers Critical-To-Quality
Prompt DeliveryA set time, say 12 minutes, for noting down the customer’s order, notifying the kitchen and serving the customer.
Palatable and Uniform TasteUsing standard recipe with measured ingredients and predecided cooking time to maintain consistent, customer-approved taste.
Piping Hot FoodMaintaining the temperature between 30 degrees to 50 degrees C, depending upon the type of dish.
Cleanliness in the restaurantSetting up a floor and tables cleaning routine at every 10 minutes.
Washing the dishes in hot water.
Reasonable pricesRegular prices within an acceptable range.
b. Benefits to customers in the form of promotions, offers, loyalty discounts etc.

Now, here; it is clearly evident that the Critical-To-Quality process transforms a vague ‘Good food’ requirement of the customers into seven specific parameters upon which management can take action and exercise control on a continual basis to improve customer satisfaction.

Thus, Critical-To-Quality builds a bridge between what the customer wants and how the organization serves it.

Critical to Quality Trees

Critical to Quality Trees

CTQ Trees (Critical-To-Quality Trees) are the tools to implement Critical-To-Quality procedure. They are the diagrammatic representation of the needs of the customers or satisfaction drivers’, as referred to in the diagram above and the translation of these drivers into the specific metrics, processes or requirements that an organization can understand, act upon and control.

Process of developing a CTQ Tree

Prerequisites for the successful mapping of CTQs

1) Identify the critical needs of the customers

Here, the business organization identifies the factors that are critical for the customers to feel good about using the product or services. The business can do incorporate these broader customer requirements into their CTQ tree by taking inputs from the salespeople.

This is because the sales force gets to communicate directly with the end-users of the products and hence, is better positioned to understand their pain points and requirements.

2) Convert these needs into a specific process parameter:

After understanding the customer requirements, the business has to convert these into specific parameters of the business processes that are used to manufacture the product or deliver a service.

E.g. If a customer wants ‘good customer service’, from the business process perspective, this translates into the parameters such as greeting the customer immediately when she enters the premises, responding to all the queries, etc.

3) Attach performance metrics to that factor, so that the deviations can be measured and controlled by the organization

After the business determines the business process parameters of a CTQ Tree, it has to attach specific, measurable performance metrics to each of these parameters so as to communicate the expectations clearly to the human resource of the organization and control deviation, if any.

Continuing the example above, the performance metric for greeting the customer will be greeting the customer within 30 seconds of her entering the premises, responding to all the queries within three minutes. The management has to observe if these time-limits are adhered to or not.

Characteristics of CTQ

  1. CTQ is a very specific and measurable form of a business process.
  2. CTQ is collected from VoC (Voice of Customer). Its genesis lies in the expectations of customers as conveyed by the customer points of contact.
  3. CTQ is used internally, within the business organization to help the management direct business processes.
  4. CTQ as a standard is actionable and controllable
  5. CTQ connects the customers’ expectations and the business’s response to the same seamlessly

Benefits of CTQ

1) Meets customer expectations

The business can successfully fulfill its customers’ expectations with the help of CTQ.

2) Possibility to surpass expectations

With CTQ, not only the present expectations can be met but it is possible to raise the bar higher by offering newer elements of product odr services. This is made possible by meticulously scrutinizing the performance standards and deviations under CTQ.

3) Elevates customer experience

The customer benefits from the implementation of CTQ in the form of sophisticated versions of products and services.

4) Enhances organization brand value

The business earns a reputation for meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations on a continuous basis, which builds its brand value.

Prerequisites for the successful mapping of CTQs

1) Data quality – correct, complete, relevant, unbiased

For a business organization to successfully design and implement a CTQ Tree, the data that it gathers should be correct, complete, relevant for its business segment and unbiased. If the data is erroneous, so would be the performance parameters and metrics.

2) Choosing critical performance metrics

Choosing the correct performance parameters that are critical for customers’ satisfaction is of prime importance. If not, the business may end up spending its time and precious resources on mapping wrong customers’ expectations, which will be a futile exercise.

3) Product performance measures must be quantified

The performance metrics must render themselves to quantification. Else, it won’t be possible for the business to measure and control them.

4) Using Quality Function Deployment

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) or the house of Quality is the most important tool used for defining CTQ Trees. It offers a structured approach to identify critical customers’ expectations, convert them into process parameters and quantify them. It was developed by Yoji Akao in 1966.

5) cross-functional cooperation

Cooperation across various functions of business such as engineering, operations, marketing, HR, etc. is pivotal for CTQ Tress to be successful.

6) Easy to understand documentation

The entire process of designing and implementing CTQ shouldn’t be too complex so as to mar the initiative of the lower rungs of management, who are, in the end, responsible for its implementation. The documentation should be minimal and easy-to-understand.

Impacts of not identifying CTQs

  1. Inconsistent product and service offerings by the business
  2. Increased rate of rejections due to defective products and services
  3. Delays in responding to customers’ need, leading to inferior customer experience.
  4. Increased cost for the business to remodel the product to meet consumer demands and loss of opportunities to capture new markets
  5. Lower profitability.

Share this post:

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Email Share on WhatsApp
Digiaide Marketing and Digital Marketing Courses

Related posts:

  1. Operations Management Definition and Principles
  2. What is Total Quality Management?
  3. Process Documentation | Importance, Goals and Steps
  4. What is Operational Excellence and its 10 Core Principles
  5. Process Improvement: Meaning, Tips, Role, Steps, and Phases
  6. Quality Circle: Meaning, Features, Objectives, Structure, and Techniques
  7. Quality Audit – Definition, Meaning, Types, Advantages
  8. What is Capacity Management? Role in Planning
  9. Process Analysis – Definition, Meaning, Objectives, Advantages
  10. Yield Management – Definition, Calculation, Examples and Strategy

What Do You Want To Learn About? (Start Here)

  1. Marketing Hub
  2. Management Hub
  3. Marketing Strategy
  4. Advertising Hub
  5. Branding Hub
  6. Market Research
  7. Small Business Marketing
  8. Sales and Selling
  9. Marketing Careers
  10. Customer Management
  11. Top 10 Lists
  1. Internet Marketing
  2. Blogging
  3. Search Engine optimization
  4. E-commerce
  5. Facebook Marketing
  6. Social Media Marketing
  7. Business Model of Brands
  8. Marketing Mix of Brands
  9. Brand Competitors
  10. Strategy of Brands
  11. SWOT of Brands
GET DAILY MARKETING UPDATES

About Hitesh Bhasin

I love writing about the latest in marketing & advertising. I am a serial entrepreneur & I created Marketing91 because I wanted my readers to stay ahead in this hectic business world.

Comments

  1. Rajeev says

    Very nice narration, thanks sir

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement
Recent Posts
  • Budgetary Slack – Role, Causes and Drawbacks
  • Capitalization – Definition, Importance and Types
  • Brinkmanship – Definition, Examples and Tips
  • Community of Practice – Definition, History and Types
  • Collaboration – Definition, Importance, Types and skills
Advertisement

Marketing91

MORE INFO

  • About Marketing91
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • ISO 9001:2015 Certified

LEARNING SERIES

  • What is Communications
  • Types of Communication

WE WRITE ON

  • Marketing
  • Small Business
  • Management
  • Internet Marketing
[email protected]

Copyright © 2022 Marketing91 All Rights Reserved