I had a conversation recently with a quality professional from another organization. The topic somehow drifted to the strict quality standards in Japan. The person talked about how his product is rejected by his Japanese counterparts for “defects” such as small blemishes and debris. The defects meet corporate standards, yet the product gets rejected at the Japanese warehouse. My response was that I felt the Japanese were looking at the product from the eyes of the customer—that the small blemishes and debris negatively impact the perception of quality even if the product is fine.

In Japanese, the term for quality is hinshitsu (hin = goods, and shitsu = quality). With the advent of total quality management, the idea of two “qualities” was made more visible by Noriaki Kano. He termed these “miryokuteki hinshitsu,” (attractive quality) and “atarimae hinshitsu,” (must-be quality).

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