SensoGram 11: Consumer Quality Control   Manufacturers must be keen to maintain product quality. Manufacturers must be keen to maintain product quality. Often, however, quality control standards are based on technical tolerances in the factory, not on the limits on of consumer perception. Why not make the quality control consumer-driven? If you calibrate product tolerances directly against consumer perception, then you will know, with confidence, just how much product variation you can afford before you jeopardize consumer satisfaction.   Sensometrics Consumer Quality Control (CQC) can take a number of forms. For example, you might need to know what variation you can afford in the level(s) of a key ingredient (sugar / salt / MSG / fragrance / thickener etc). Or maybe you should know whether consumers can discern batch-to-batch variation – say, in product manufactured at different times of the year, or product from different factories. Or yet again, perhaps your main concern is not production but distribution; this is critical with a perishable product.   In more advanced CQC designs, we can look at production effects and distribution effects simultaneously:                                                                           In this particular example, we take product from three different production runs and shift some of each through three different distribution routes. SensoMetrics product evaluation of the nine product variants will then make clear –   ·                     Whether you should be concerned about variation in your production ·                     Whether you should be concerned about variation in distribution practice ( eg. lags/temperature control) ·                     The relative importance or production and distribution. You can be as fastidious as you like about tolerances in the factory, but this is easily nullified by poor distribution!   Consumer Quality Control points up your priorities in Quality Management.