Enjoy my QA article. Have a safe evening.
BRANDED FOR QUALITY
Contributed by Hung Nguyen
“In God we trust”, this is what printed on the US dollar bill. However, when placing an order, many of our customers cannot see or touch the products. But they still choose to invest their money on Thermon Electrical Heat Tracing products. In many ways, the customers are saying “in the brand Thermon, we trust”.
Clearly, no one can underestimate how important the brand name is to a product. In 1996, I visited a small country in Southeast Asia. One day I walked downtown and saw a pair of Nike soccer shoes displayed by a street vendor. The seller asked me for $10. “Pretty cheap for sport shoes,” I thought. At that time, I played soccer in the US and knew that the same pair would be about $40; this would be a big savings for me. Price negotiation is always a routine part of a deal in Southeast Asia so I started to deal “how about $6?” The seller laughed out loud and countered with “$8. That is the least, take it or leave it.” I was about to raise my offer to $7, but I changed my mind. “Well, I can only give you $4 for this pair,” I said. The seller was stunned, his jaw ground. He angrily asked me why I’d lowered my offer. Smiling, I pointed out to him that these were fake Nike shoes. The front part of the shoes displayed “Nike”; however, the back heels read “Mike”. An extra line had been added to the “N”. Apparently some local factories fabricated this product but stole the Nike logo to fool the buyers; they used an altered name to avoid legal troubles. To make a long story short, I purchased that pair for $5, just to use them to make a point in some quality classes I hosted.
Research conducted by Takeichi and Quelch (1983) concluded that customer perception of quality is divided into three phases – before purchase, at point of purchase, and after purchase. Regarding “before purchase”, the factors involved in customers‘ decisions are previous experience, opinions of friends, store reputation, published test results, advertised price for performance and, most of all, the company’s brand name and image, just like the above case of Nike shoes.
Here at Thermon, our facility is certified by many regulation bodies such as ISO, FM, CSA, IECEx etc. With these certifications, our Quality Management System (QMS) is structured to meet all requirements set forth. The system focuses on building quality into our products and services. We place the certifications, along with our Thermon logo, on our website, in our publications and in our documents. When referring to Thermon, folks are looking to a leader in the Electrical Heat Tracing (EHT) business. When placing an order with Thermon, our customers are putting their trust in the name Thermon. In good faith, they believe that the company has a culture of well trained workers and staff and tight process control with quality testing. They are confident that the Thermon system results in reliable products and a high level of warranted performance. The customers expect our products to meet all product specifications and that they will continue to service well for years to come. Clearly, they do not expect nor can they afford any defects or flaws in the products and their performance; any unexpected failure is extremely costly. A quality expert has estimated that the cost of finding and correcting a defect could increase by a ratio of ten for each major stage the product moves to from production to the customer. In our plant, that means if it costs $1 at material receiving inspection, the cost increases to $10 at extrusion completion, $100 when it reaches our warehouse storage, and $1000 at the installation site.
Keep in mind that “It is the policy of Thermon Manufacturing Company to deliver to our customers timely, error-free, cost-effective products and services that meet their requirements.” We put our pride in the Thermon name and logo appearing on all our Thermon products and services. You are a part of the Thermon QMS system. Just like the above picture said “What if our products had Your Name on them”, will you make them The Best Quality on earth?
In closing, let’s join the “Shaolin Soccer” movie at the end. Just imagine I had worn the above Mike shoes and was playing in a championship soccer match. With time running out, I dribbled the ball to the opponent goal area and was about to shoot to win. All cameras were following my move, all eyes were widely open, all bets were off, and the entire field was silent waiting for “The Shot” … that is, until the sole detached from the shoe and flew off. Wow, we all can hear someone screaming “Which brand of shoe is that!” I will let you imagine the rest of this Kodak moment story.
This fall I was losing chickens from 5:00AM-8:00AM, caught this:
