Nurofen Plus and the importance of quality -

Quality control is a key element of any business’s operations management and is a theme regularly covered in exam case studies. I am sure that the starting point for many of you when teaching this concept is the importance of quality to business. There have been many examples that we can refer to, most recently the case of Nurofen Plus...

I particularly like this example as it covers several of the key reasons why quality is important. Where a product can be potentially damaging to the consumer the stakes are raised even higher.

We saw the same impact with the salmonella contamination at Cadbury’s and with the on-going problems at Toyota. These stories highlight the real cost of quality problems for a business. These include the compensation payments to damaged customers and the longer term cost to the business’s reputation and the trust consumers have in their product. There is also the cost of recalling stock and publicity that generates in the news.

These businesses are likely to carry out internal audits as well as being examined by external agencies. In the case of Cadbury’s, it led to a fine of £1million. Changes in procedures are inevitably disruptive to the business slowing down operations and affecting productivity.

Businesses are generally quick to respond (they have to) in the hope of restoring trust in their brands. These examples above are, of course, large corporations with the resources available to deal with these problems. For smaller businesses the outcome may be more serious and the cost of poor quality control could be enough to shut them down.