It’s a term that’s widely used – and widely misunderstood. The “cost of quality” isn’t the price of creating a quality product or service. It’s the cost of NOT creating a quality product or service. Every time work is redone, the cost of quality increases. Obvious examples include:
• The reworking of a manufactured item.
• The retesting of an assembly.
• The rebuilding of a tool.
• The correction of a bank statement.
• The reworking of a service, such as the reprocessing of a loan operation or the replacement of a food order in a restaurant.
In short, any cost that would not have been expended if quality were perfect contributes to the cost of quality.
Total Quality Costs:
As the table below shows, quality costs are the total of the cost incurred by:
• Investing in the prevention of nonconformance to requirements.
• Appraising a product or service for conformance to requirements.
• Failing to meet requirements.
Quality Costs—general description:
Prevention Costs:
The costs of all activities specifically designed to prevent poor quality in products or services.
Examples are the costs of:
• New product review
• Quality planning
• Supplier capability surveys
• Process capability evaluations
• Quality improvement team meetings
• Quality improvement projects
• Quality education and training
Appraisal Costs:
The costs associated with measuring, evaluating or auditing products or services to assure conformance to quality standards and performance requirements.
These include the costs of:
• Incoming and source inspection/test of purchased material
• In-process and final inspection/test
• Product, process or service audits
• Calibration of measuring and test equipment
• Associated supplies and materials
Failure Costs:
The costs resulting from products or services not conforming to requirements or customer/user needs. Failure costs are divided into internal and external failure categories.
Internal Failure Costs: Failure costs occurring prior to delivery or shipment of the product, or the furnishing of a service, to the customer.
Examples are the costs of:
• Scrap
• Rework
• Re-inspection
• Re-testing
• Material review
• Downgrading
External Failure Costs: Failure costs occurring after delivery or shipment of the product and during or after furnishing of a service to the customer.
Examples are the costs of:
• Processing customer complaints
• Customer returns
• Warranty claims
• Product recalls