One of ISO-9001 trends is increasing customer expectations about the quality of products or services

Quality in business, engineering and manufacturing has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it is also defined as fitness for purpose. Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the specification quality of a product/service, or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace. Producers might measure the conformance quality, or degree to which the product/service was produced correctly. Support personnel may measure quality in the degree that a product is reliable, maintainable, or sustainable. Simply put, a quality item (an item that has quality) has the ability to perform satisfactorily in service and is suitable for its intended purpose.

There are five aspects of quality in a business context:

1. Producing - providing something.
2. Checking - confirming that something has been done correctly.
3. Quality Control - controlling a process to ensure that the outcomes are predictable.
4. Quality Management – directing an organization so that it optimizes its performance through analysis and improvement.
5. Quality Assurance – obtaining confidence that a product or service will be satisfactory. (Normally performed by a purchaser)