9.3.1 Economic essence and indicators of product quality

In his life and activity, man everywhere deals with the material world created by his mind and hands, which, with all its infinite diversity, has a single community, whose name is product quality ^* .

The concept of "product quality" is closely related to the concept of "need." Product quality ^* aims to meet the social and personal needs of people. Improving the quality of products is an important prerequisite for the intensive development of the economy and increasing the efficiency of social production, because contributes to a more complete satisfaction of the needs of society as a whole and individual consumers, which is of great social and social importance.

The notion of quality is constantly changing. Quality that satisfied the consumer a year ago may no longer meet its requirements this year. At every stage of the development of society, the requirements for quality are the result of the interaction of objective and subjective factors. The first are manifested in the level of development of the productive forces, primarily science and technology, the second in the strength and nature of consumer influence on social production, largely manifested in effective demand for specific types of products.

The growth of product quality has two kinds of constraints: scientific and technological achievements and the productive potential of society, which determines the amount of total social labor costs required to create and use products in accordance with its functional purpose. Low product quality leads to unproductive costs of living and materialized labor, to losses in the production and operation of products or consumption.

Two characteristics of products - quality and quantity - are closely interrelated in meeting social needs. A given amount of needs can be satisfied with a smaller amount of products at a higher quality and vice versa. Improving quality is equivalent to increasing the volume of output without additional resource costs. Calculations show that the effectiveness of investments aimed at improving product quality is twice as high as the cost-effectiveness of increasing its production volumes. The most reliable way to meet the demand for goods, and therefore for raw materials and other material resources for their production, is to improve quality.

A developed product market solves the problem of quality simply: a poor quality product does not find a consumer. Under these conditions, product quality is the main indicator of its competitiveness.

Quality is therefore closely related to needs. Based on this definition of "product quality". GOST 15467 defines product quality as "a set of product properties that determine its suitability to meet certain needs in accordance with its purpose . "

It follows from this definition that its property is taken as the initial characteristic of product quality. Property ^* is an objective feature of the product, manifested during its creation, operation or consumption. Each specific type of product has many different properties. Their combination allows us to distinguish it from other products.

All properties of products can be divided into simple and complex . The simple properties include the mass of the product, the carrying capacity and speed of the car, engine power, etc. An example of a complex property is product reliability, which is a combination of simpler properties: reliability, durability, maintainability, maintainability.

Product quality ^* is manifested in the characteristics of properties, their usefulness for certain conditions and purposes of using products, in the purpose of products.

The product quality indicator (PEP) is a quantitative characteristic of one or several properties of a product, considered in relation to certain conditions of its creation, operation or consumption.

Each type of product is characterized by its own PKP nomenclature, which depends on the purpose of the product. For multi-purpose products, this nomenclature can be very numerous. The control panel can be expressed in different units (for example, km / h, hours to failure), points, and can also be dimensionless.

In accordance with GOST 15467, the following groups of product quality indicators are used.

Purpose indicators characterize the product properties that determine the main functions for which it is intended to be performed, and determine its scope: classification (TV screen size, voltage and power of the light bulb), functional (performance, accuracy, measurement limits, range), structural ( mass, overall dimensions), operational (fuel consumption, consumed electrical power), composition and structure (substance concentration, impurity content).

Reliability indicators - characterize the property of a product to perform specified functions, while maintaining its operational performance within specified limits for the required period of time or the required operating time. Reliability is a complex property characterized by the following components: reliability (average time to first failure, probability of failure-free operation for a certain period, failure rate), durability (average life, average service life to overhaul, average service life to write off), persistence ( the average term of security, the assigned shelf life), maintainability (MTTR uptime, the probability of disaster recovery within a certain th time interval).

Indicators of economical use of resources - characterize the degree of use in the design of the product and in its operation of raw materials, materials, fuel, energy, labor resources: the specific consumption of raw materials, the specific consumption of materials, the loss of raw materials under regulated conditions, the specific fuel consumption, the specific energy consumption, the effective factor actions, total or specific labor intensity of the product.

Safety indicators characterize the product properties that guarantee the safety of a person and other objects during its operation, maintenance, transportation and storage: the probability of a person’s safe operation for a certain time, the response time of protective devices, the insulation resistance of current-carrying parts, the electrical strength of high-voltage circuits.

Ergonomic indicators - characterize the adaptability of the product to human exploitation: hygienic (light, temperature, humidity), anthropometric (according to the design of the human body), psycho-physiological (according to the power, speed, visual, auditory, etc.) capabilities of a person.

Aesthetic indicators - characterize artistic expressiveness, rationality of form, integrity of the composition, conformity with fashion, etc.

Technological indicators - characterize the properties of the product, determining the adaptability of its design to achieve the lowest cost of resources in the production, operation and repair: labor intensity, material consumption, energy intensity, technological cost.

Indicators of transportability - characterize the suitability of products for transport operations: the average duration of preparation for transportation, the average duration of installation of products on the means of transportation of a certain type, the average complexity of preparation for transportation, the utilization rate of the vehicle, the average duration of unloading products.

Indicators of standardization and unification - characterize the saturation of products with standard, unified and original components: the coefficient of applicability, the coefficient of repeatability, the coefficient of mutual unification for a group of products.

Patent law indicators - characterize patent protection and patent purity of products: indicators of patent protection and patent purity.

Environmental indicators - characterize the level of harmful effects on the environment arising from the operation or consumption of products: the amount of harmful impurities released into the environment; probability of emissions of harmful particles, gases, radiation, etc.

Economic indicators - characterize the cost of development, manufacture, operation or consumption of products, as well as the economic efficiency of its production and use.

Indicators of resistance to external influences: dust protection, moisture resistance, water resistance, impact resistance, vibration strength, resistance to external magnetic fields, etc.

The level of product quality is a relative characteristic of its quality. It is determined by comparing the quality indicators of the evaluated products with the base ones, i.e. with the quality indicators of the base sample (analog).

The science (scientific field) involved in the quantitative assessment of product quality (quality measurement) is called qualimetry.

For a comparative assessment of product quality and determine the level of quality indicators are calculated:

relative singular

where P _i and P _i - absolute values ​​of the i- th quality indicator of the compared and base products;

complex for a group of indicators, calculated as a weighted average arithmetic or geometric value

where a _i is the weight (importance) coefficient of the i-th indicator (property) among the others ( ); n is the number of indicators in the group;

integral, which reflects the ratio of the total beneficial effect from the operation or consumption of products to the total costs of its creation and operation or consumption

where E - the total useful effect from the operation of products (for example, the development of the machine for a certain period - year, month, etc., the mileage of the truck in ton-kilometers for the service life before the overhaul); S _with - the total cost of creating products (development, manufacture, installation, etc. one-time costs); Z _e - total operating costs (maintenance, repair, and other current costs).