Korean Standard Quality Excellence Index for strategic quality planning and improvement

Abstract

As an ongoing pursuit of quality excellence, Korea continues to perform annual product quality evaluation, based on the Korean Standard Quality Excellence Index (KSQEI), as measured across multiple industries by representative customers and experts in each industry. In this study, we analysed the current level of product quality in Korea, and further investigated the impact of quality elements on consumer satisfaction. This study was based on the KSQEI 2015 survey, through which national quality levels were measured for over 72 firms, across 20 industries. Comparisons of weighting methodologies were performed, using analytic hierarchy processing (AHP), entropy determinations, and a compromised weighting approach. Multiple linear regression analyses were also conducted to identify the effectiveness of product and hedonic quality elements on consumer satisfaction. The priorities of quality improvement varied, depending on the chosen perspective of objective or subjective methodologies. Additionally, our implicit inferences indicate that firms should design improvement strategies by considering consumers’ quality attributes, as well as any specific firm’s strategic positioning in the marketplace. Although the scope of the KSQEI is a representative national quality evaluation system, the index was initially designed as a generic model to evaluate product quality within domestic environments. Therefore, while feedback from global consumers was not available for this study, we believe this approach to be a highly representative assessment for businesses around the world. For each industry, 648 respondents (90% consumers and 10% industry experts, on average) were surveyed to assess product quality, hedonic quality, and consumer satisfaction. This study reveals the current levels of various Korean products’ quality, and delineates both the importance of weighting methodologies and prioritisation strategies, using consumer satisfactory groups, when employing KSQEI for quality improvement.