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Quality creation in universities based on customer needs
Seyed Ahmad Hashemi
Abstract
In the process of globalization quality is an important and effective factor and universities have entered to a new era in which competition and quality are the most important elements of it. In this regard the quality of education is the basic variable which plays important roles in the hidden competition between countries, as education goes beyond a social matter and it is turning to an economical matter and from one direction manager's attitude, action and decision-making toward quality, depends on their education. Quality has different definitions and according to input, process and output in a higher education we can define it differently but from different point of view and totally we should define quality in higher education based on elitism, individualism and socialism and evaluate universities. In the other hand with emphasize on TQM culture, quality means satisfying customer's need and manager's attention to satisfying customer needs is the final goal of qualities. In this essay attention was made to it as an important factor in qualitative and quantitative development in universities and finally present a model for improving quality and stable learner quality management.
Keywords quality, Customer , needs
Introduction
In moving toward globalization quality is undoubtedly an important and effective factor. In the process of industrial and trading development, unity of global economy and development and saturation of market quality plays the main role and is considered as one of the most important factors in organization's competition and success in global markets. In another side the role of education in country is clear for everybody. Most ideologists believe education matter is beyond a social matter and it has changed to an economical issue. Most ideologists believe that high education has entered to a new age and competition and quality are the major features of it. In this regard Figenbam who has established the total quality management believes education quality is the most important factor in hidden competition between countries because the way of thinking, action and the decision-making of managers, engineers, workers, teachers and the other people of a society toward the quality depend on their education and in another hand education itself and especially high education has been pulled to a competition environment.
Peters (1991:68) believes: the quality that a customer expects from a production or service is the most important factor that affects on company's function. So quality is defined from customer's point of view and customers are the final goal of quality. According to the importance of customers in quality and for improvement of quality in high education first of all we should recognize our customers in order to identify quality in high education.
Quality in high education system and college system
A lot of definitions about quality in college have been presented. According to the input, process and output, quality is defined differently
In another word the current situation of learners by the respect of scientific skills, attitude and knowledge that can be related to high education system is considered as an added value based on this definition, educational system quality can be evaluated by any of educational system elements.
According to the above mentioned we can define a high education quality as harmony of input, process, output, and the outcome factors in system with standards which has been determined by the expectations, goals and duties of a society for improving high education activities. In general there are three view of quality in universities and according to these three views quality grows in university and is paid more attention and evaluation. In a research Zeinalypur (2004:45) quoted from Robert Ben Bom who named these three quality views as below:
A: qualiyy-oriented view: in this view quality of university is evaluated according to the harmony of university with Criteria and the standards and the national and international specific-research features. In this process the standards and academic features is applied as the reference.
B: individualism view: in this view university is evaluated based on the rate of partnership and providing learning high experience and university helps in the specific growing of students or the members of university board. In this process the rate of individual learning is considered as criteria for quality.
C: socialism view: in socialism view quality is evaluated based on guarantied services of university and comply the important needs of society.
So with emphasizing on the above dimensions and other dimension that are available about quality we should design a general pattern for improving quality in universities according to the culture and special conditions in order to make improvement in high education quality and following that companies and industries. According to the importance of customer in learner quality management and because of modern ideas about quality which quality is defined according to the customer satisfaction first of all we define learner quality management and then we investigate the customer in high education systems.
Learner- approach quality management is systematic and purposeful with focusing on quality according to the customers' satisfaction and needs and relies on organization staff partnership and based on realities and continual education for gaining qualitative and strategic goals of organization which is lead by managers.
Customer oriented
Customer in total quality management culture has a special place and since all the personnel of an organization are at the customer's service so customer center culture is common in all organizations and its importance is appreciated. Customer in learner quality management system has such an important role that Peter De Rucker (1984:62) says: there is only one creditable definition for goal in every organization and trading and that is attraction of a customer.
All the real and legal individuals that buy a production or services of an organization are considered customers. Customer is the most important factor in activities and efforts of an organization for improving the quality. Generally customers of an organization are divided into two groups, external customers (inter organizational) and internal customers (intra organizational)(Gia Gits, 2001:311).
External customer: individual or organization that buys the final service or production of an institute. All the personnel of organization must know how to participate in satisfying this kind of customers. So improving personnel performance for maintaining the customers and getting new customers is a crucial matter. In fact external customer of an organization is orientation of quality improvement plans. The major tries of organization is meeting the needs of this kind of customers. An organization should always try to present a suitable and continuous value to the customers. Present and future needs of customers must be paid attention and an organization must be aware of some institutions products, arrivals and competition lever.
Internal customer: providing external customer needs and satisfying them depends on the performance of internal customers. Considering co workers as internal customers is a kind of organizational culture. Making this culture in workers' that their benefits is in providing needs and satisfying the external customers, workers effort in this regard gets manifold. In another view every individual as an internal customer has two roles. As a presenter of a product or service to his co-worker in a working process or to an external customer in an independent activity and also as a receiver of service or product from the other person. This interpretation can be applied for every productive, service stage. (Johnson Christer 2001, 155)
Customer in governmental or public organizations: giving a definition from customers in governmental organizations in comparison with private organization is more complex. In private companies someone who buys a product or service is called customer but in governmental organization there is no such a case. Customer can be all of society that pays the budget of public organization for making his needs.
In some cases meeting the needs of customer does not lead to satisfying social needs for example some students that participate in public university, want University to give them certificate without achieving specific knowledge but it doesn't satisfy the society needs and they should consider whole for complying society needs (Nelson:1994:82). When the society needs are not in harmony with the organization designer this organization will face some exact problems sometime and organization is in danger of bankrupt and this is the point that complying customers' needs keep an organization alive if customers are the members of an organization. The needs that are to be answered must be identified in a democratic way.
Customer in high education
Yet in high education generally quality has been identified according to the harmony with the standards so customer is new matter for him. Regardless of this fact that some don't agree with such interpretations as customer or market in educational environment, this principle has some concepts which need more attention in high education. According to this view educational system must be designed a cording to the real needs of people that are using the system not according to those who design a system. Customer-center view at least has this advantage that educational goals are all related to the practical needs of customers. In some educational people idea customer word is a trading word and is not applicable in education, instead they prefer to use client. Client with its incident professional service meaning is more suitable. Trustee is another word that is used in educational books. And some others rejected these words and prefer to use student word. These customers have different needs. Robinson and Lag have emphasized on importance of universities in external marketing and they have divided customers to three groups, level one, two and three. The students are the first customers and education workers second customers and the third customers are real dependent people (Robinson, 1989:42-51). Robinson Kotler and Fox (1995:2) by studying education of marketing and emphasizing on educational activities said: any educational institute is faced with several group and they should know how to manage their relationship with them so they recognized that 16 group that emphasized on institute activities which include: staffs, graduated, provider of institute needs, institute rivals, governmental agencies, people that are related to institute by their work, press, dependent organizations, and so on.
Kangi and Tomb (1999:123-159) divided customers to several groups according to the importance of education process, which are: current students, potential students, staffs, employee, government and industry. Marco, Antonio (2003:3) divided customers to external and internal group and emphasize that internal customers are those who work for external customers satisfaction. In addition they divide customers into first and second customers and these categorizations are based on situation of them as external or internal customers and also their scale of relationship with institute. Authors consider instruction as the result of high education and based on the students role during education they are divided into two groups external and internal as shown in chart 1.
In Chizmar model, the students and staffs are considered as customers. In this model students are producer, Society is customer and learning is product. This model is more acceptable in high education. Educational staffs often do not tend to know the students as customers and a staff's as workers and most of them resist knowing student as a customer. Finding a scientific and acceptable model in applying the learner quality management principle is very important.
In Chizmar model the role of master is recognition of product and method of production and that as a consular shows the student as input, guidance as process, learning and system as an output and also be responsible to qualitative investigation of class. Another duty of masters is decreasing learning cost and helping students know the process and the systems which are more effective. In his model there are so many roles for master but the major role of masters is, answering to the student learning. Quality in this model means applying some tools that make the work better and that is related to master and this work includes helping students toward their learning. He concluded that learning-teaching learner quality model conditions consist of group working, powerfulness, feedback and continuous progress (Fist Viki & Bart, 2001:101).
In continuation Edward Salic applied customers word for relation and differences between first customers that receive direct services that is a person that had direct share in education of specific people or institute and third customers that had a few but direct and important share in education of people such as employers, government worker and society in general (Hadighi, 2002:39),Table 1.
Generally we can say that external customers are those who receive the output and internal customers are those who work on the process of system.
Reduction of customers in high education institutes from different views shows that scientists have limited the processes of high education into one process and have investigated the customer in this process without considering external and internal customers. If you want to study the process of education accurately, you should divide education into learning and teaching subdivisions The border in the process of teaching masters are internal customers and students are external customers. But in learning process students are internal customers and employers are external customers. But in research process masters and scientist are internal customers and society and government are external customers (Table 1)
So with considering all processes, high education customers are:
With considering the role of customers, whether internal or external in university and knowing their needs in different scientific, research and financial areas. We will make an instructive role for this university in construction of high education in the country and in a special attention to the different areas of country and with localized courses and making the university courses specialized with the area features it will have a great influence on the process of high education in our country.
Conclusion
In total quality management culture, quality and satisfaction of customer is thought the same, in another word needs of customer must be met in the best and the most suitable way. So for situating total quality management in high education in the first step we should recognize the customers then we can define the quality according to their needs. In the harmonic comparison of expert's ideas it was recognized that in the process of education they have only studied customers holistically. But in high education in addition to education process is divided into the subdivision of learning and teaching every one of them has external and internal customers. They should pay attention to the research process and external and internal customers (Table 2).
So with the importance of quality in education especially in high education and improvement of quality in high education and putting of total quality management, conceptual model is proposed and has these steps:
A: choosing customers and their needs
With the importance of customer as a basic principle of total quality management and with this aspect that quality identified by customers expectations and this stage we should choose customers and their needs and they should answer to these questions:
B: quality questioning
In this stage we investigate the current situation of university with the quality standards (customer -center, corporation, continual improvement,..) And also we investigate advantages and limitations of university.
C: awareness and preparation
In this stage we determine to what extend the board of university are ready for accepting total quality management and to what extent the top managers are optimistic to implementing and supporting total quality management. So the members of organization must know the philosophy of total quality management and its benefits and also we should make motivation and desire for performing the system in them.
D: planning
In this stage according to pervious stages, we edit plans, missions, goals and necessary educations.
E: performing
In this stage total quality management is stabilized.
Evaluation and feedback
However feedback exists in every stage after stabilizing total quality management we need feedback for determining to what extent and we have been successful in reaching our goals because the goal is continual improvement (Chart 2).
So one of the university duties is customer recognition whether it is external or internal and a process that external and internal customer tries to make quality and build a total quality management with paying attention to this point by university managers we expand and make the high education public all over the country.
كلام اول زندگینامه رزومه تحصیلات تکمیلی سایت های معتبر تربیتی مقالات چاپ شده در مجلات داخلی ISC كتابهاي تالیف و ترجمه شده مقالات كنفرانس هاي داخلي موضوعات تحقیقی پیشنهادی مقالات كنفرانس هاي خارجي مقالات چاپ شده در مجلات خارجي غیر ISI مقالات چاپ شده در مجلات خارجي ISI مقالات چاپ شده در مجلات خارجي ISC طرح هاي پژوهشي انجام شده منابع آزمون کارشناسی ارشد علوم تربیتی منابع آزمون دکتری برنامه ريزي درسي 
موضوع: مقالات كنفرانس هاي خارجي
نويسنده: 
تاريخ: 4 آذر 1388
بازديدها: 1997
