In ancient times, quality was defined as “degree of excellence” or “value” and was primarily maintained by craftsmanship. The 2nd industrial revolution—accompanied by mass production systems, greatly increased productivity, and reduced cost—became the foundation of our current quality system. The groundbreaking changes introduced during the 3rd and 4th industrial revolutions featuring IT, sensors, AI, big data, and hyper connectivity, highlight the need to center quality concepts and systems around innovation and creating customer value. Here we discuss 2 new quality concepts, 1) individualized customer value, and 2) experience- and relationship-based quality.
