If we group products and services (entities) by type, category, class and grade
we can use the subdivision to make comparisons on an equitable basis. But
when we compare entities we must be careful not to claim one is of better
quality than the other unless they are of the same grade. Entities of the same
type have at least one attribute in common. Entities of the same grade have
been designed for the same functional use and therefore comparisons are valid.
Comparisons on quality between entities of different grades, classes, categories
or types are invalid because they have been designed for a different use or
purpose.
Let us look at some examples to illustrate the point. Food is a type of entity.
Transport is another entity. Putting aside the fact that in the food industry the
terms class and grade are used to denote the condition of post-production
product, comparisons between types is like comparing fruit and trucks – there
are no common attributes. Comparisons between categories are like comparing
fruit and vegetables. Comparisons between classes are like comparing apples
and oranges. Comparisons between grades is like comparing eating apples and
cooking apples.
Now let us take another example. Transport is a type of entity. There are
different categories of transport such as airliners, ships, automobiles and trains;
they are all modes of transport but each has many different attributes.
Differences between categories of transport are therefore differences in modes of
transport. Within each category there are differences in class. For manufactured
products, differences between classes imply differences in purpose. Luxury cars,
large family cars, small family cars, vans, trucks, four-wheel drive vehicles etc.
fall within the same category of transport but each was designed for a different
purpose. Family cars are in a different class to luxury cars; they were not
designed for the same purpose. It is therefore inappropriate to compare a
Cadillac with a Chevrolet or a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow with a Ford Mondeo.
Entities designed for the same purpose but having different specifications are
of different grades. A Ford Mondeo GTX is a different grade to a Mondeo LX.
They were both designed for the same purpose but differ in their performance
and features.
Now let us take an example from the service industry: accommodation. There
are various categories, such as rented, leased and purchased. In the rented
category there are hotels, inns, guesthouses, apartments etc. It would be inappropriate
to compare hotels with guesthouses or apartments with inns. They are
each in a different class. Hotels are a class of accommodation within which are
grades such as 5 star, 4 star, 3 star etc., indicating the facilities offered.
You can legitimately compare the quality of entities if comparing entities of
the same grade. If a low-grade service meets the needs for which it was
designed, it is of the requisite quality. If a high-grade product or service fails to
meet the requirements for which it was designed, it is of poor quality,
regardless of it still meeting the requirements for the lower grade. There is a
market for such differences in products and services but should customer
expectations change then what was once acceptable for a particular grade may
no longer be acceptable and regrading may have to occur.
Where manufacturing processes are prone to uncontrollable variation it is
not uncommon to grade products as a method of selection. The product that is
free of imperfections would be the highest grade and would therefore
command the highest price. Any product with imperfections would be
downgraded and sold at a correspondingly lower price. Examples of such
practice arise in the fruit and vegetables trade and the ceramics, glass and
textile industries. In the electronic component industry, grading is a common
practice to select devices that operate between certain temperature ranges. In
ideal conditions all devices would meet the higher specification but due to
manufacturing variation only a few may actually reach full performance. The
remainder of the devices has a degraded performance but still offer all the
functions of the top-grade component at lower temperatures. To say that these
differences are not differences in quality would be misleading, because the
products were all designed to fulfil the higher specification. As there is a
market for such products it is expedient to exploit it. There is a range over
which product quality can vary and still create satisfied customers. Outside the
lower end of this range the product is considered to be of poor quality.
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