ASSIGNMENT 3

Topic:
American Society of Quality (ASQ) & American Customer Satisfaction index (ASCI)

Submitted To:
Madam Saman Naz (Course Instructor)

Submitted By:
Mr. Ammar Hassan (BBC-08-15)

Institute of Management Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan

American Society for Quality (ASQ):

American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly known as American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a knowledge-based global community of quality control experts, with nearly 85,000 members dedicated to the promotion and advancement of quality tools, principles, and practices in their workplaces and in their communities. The Society is the world's leading authority on quality. With more than 100,000 individual and organizational members, this professional association advances learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. Established in 1946 and based in Milwaukee, ASQ traces its beginnings to the end of World War II, as quality experts and manufacturers sought ways to sustain the many qualityimprovement techniques used during wartime. ASQ has played an important role in upholding these standards from the past while championing continued innovation in the field of quality. In the 1980s, ASQ members began to see how quality could be applied beyond the world of manufacturing. Quality, they realized, could make a difference in any organization and touch every person in it. Because of this, the idea of quality began to morph into a much broader discipline aimed at leading, inspiring, and managing a broad range of businesses and activities, with a focus on excellence. ASQ supports its members by providing a wide range of resources, from certification and training to publications and conferences. Globally, ASQ has formed relationships with nonprofit organizations that have comparable missions and principles, forming collaborative efforts to meet the quality needs of companies, individuals, and organizations worldwide. Its members have informed and advised the U.S. Congress, government agencies, state legislatures, and other groups and individuals on quality-related topics. Since 1991, ASQ has administered the United States premier quality award, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which annually recognizes companies and organizations that have achieved performance excellence. The ASQ Dorian Shainin Medal is awarded annually for the Development and Application of Creative or Unique Statistical Approaches in the Solving of Problems Relative to the Quality of Product or Service. ASQ is a founding partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator. The ASQ offers a variety of professional certifications relating to various aspects of the quality profession: Engineer CQE Principle of product and service, quality evaluation, and control. Technician CQT Quality problem, analysis, inspection sampling plans and statistical process control applications.

Six Sigma Black Belt CSSBB To demonstrate competency in Six Sigma methods. Process Analyst CQPA Paraprofessional who analyses and solves quality problems and is quality improvement projects. Auditor CQA Standards and principles of auditing, questions, evaluations and reports for quality system adequacy.

American Customer Satisfaction Index:

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is an economic indicator that measures the satisfaction of consumers across the U.S. economy. It is produced by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a private company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The ACSI interviews about 80,000 Americans annually and asks about their satisfaction with the goods and services they have consumed. Potential respondents are screened prior to interviewing to guarantee inclusion of customers of a wide range of business-to-consumer products and services, including durable goods, services, non-durable goods, local government services, federal government services, and so forth. Results from data collection and analyses are released to the public throughout each calendar year. ACSI data has been used by academic researchers, corporations, government agencies, market analysts and investors, industry trade associations, and consumers. The ACSI was started in 1994 by researchers at the National Quality Research Center, a research unit within the University of Michigan, in cooperation with partners at the American Society for Quality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and CFI Group in Ann Arbor. The ACSI was based on a model originally implemented in 1989 for the Swedish economy called the Swedish Customer Satisfaction Barometer (SCSB). In 2009, the ACSI left the University of Michigan to form a private company, although Fornell remains a professor at the university and the principal researcher behind the ACSI. The ACSI uses two interrelated methods to measure customer satisfaction: Customer interviewing Econometric modelling.

ACSI researchers analyse this data once collected with a structural equation model, which provides scores for the measured latent variable components (such as customer expectations, overall quality, perceived value, etc.), and the relationships (or "impacts") between these measured components. Most importantly, each measured company or organization receives a customer satisfaction index score (an "ACSI score") which reflects a weighted average of three satisfaction proxy questions. Each index score is on a 0-100 scale and a company can (hypothetically) receive any score ranging from 0 to 100. In practice, over the history of the

ACSI scores have tended to range from the low 50's to the high 80's. While slight differences between questionnaires administered to respondents across industries and sectors do exist, the three satisfaction questions used to create the ACSI score for each company are identical. Coupled with the standardized 0-100 index scale, these methods allow maximum comparability between companies and government agencies. Using these methods, each year ACSI produces customer satisfaction scores for more than 225 companies, 45 industries, 10 economic sectors and the U.S. national economy overall. Measurement is done on a rolling basis. During each fiscal quarter, data is collected for particular sectors and industries and used to replace data collected 12 months earlier. This data is then weighted by company market share up to industry scores, by industry revenue to create sector scores, and by sector share of GDP to create the National ACSI score. The National ACSI score represents, albeit at a level of abstraction, the satisfaction of the "average American consumer." This broad perspective allows ACSI researchers to examine the impact of improving or declining satisfaction on macroeconomic performance. Once completed, all of these results are released to the public on a monthly basis through the ACSI website and a variety of media outlets.