Garvin’s 8 Dimensions of Quality

In 1987 David Garvin suggested that there are eight dimensions to quality.

These eight dimensions are performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and perceived quality.

 They are the things that make it stand out from its competitors and give it value. These are the things that differentiate your business from others in the marketplace.

 Let’s understand each of these dimensions:

1. Performance:

A performance characteristic describes a product’s essential function.

For a car, performance would include characteristics like millage per gallon, acceleration, handling, cruising speed etc.

For a smartphone, performance would include characteristics like clear phone reception, data speed etc.

2. Features:

Features are a secondary aspect of performance. They’re “the bells and whistles” of products and services. They’re the ones who add extra functionality to their essential functions.

For a car, features would include the built-in GPS, seat warmer, smartphone integration etc.

For a smartphone, features could include a high-resolution camera, retina or fingerprint sensor etc.

Sometimes it might be challenging to say which is a performance dimension and which is a feature dimension.

3. Reliability

Reliability is the ability of a product or service to perform as expected over time.

For example, if you buy a new car, you do not expect the vehicle to break down frequently. The most commonly used reliability measurements are the Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) and Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)…

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