A product has a key role in realizing quality

In fact, in practice quality is being brought about to the customer (or more generally to the stakeholders of an organization) through products.

The product issues have been considered in practice (in organizations) and in research studies typically in an inadequate way. Therefore it is better to go back to the basics. According to the standard vocabulary and definition of the recognized ISO 9000 standard a product as a concept is in general "a result of a process" to be delivered from the supplier to the customer. This definition of a product is valid for all kinds of businesses. Services are nowadays the most important products or parts of the products of any organization. In addition to services, many organizations produce also goods.



Understanding the concept of service has proved to be difficult in practice. According to the standard definition of ISO 9000 for service-concept, 'service' refers to the result of an organization's actions (processes) to the customer, who also participates in this result through his or her own actions. The action itself does not constitute a service, but a service is rather a more permanent result (e.g. the memorable experience produced by a travel agency) which the customer retains even after the service activity ends.

A service may consist of human and mechanic (automatic) service elements.

Only if the product is understood clearly one may able to talk about product quality.