The cost of low quality

Ross Woods, Rev. 2021

The costs of maintaining optimum quality is often expensive, but low quality can also be expensive.

1. The costs of handling and rectifying customer complaints and (e.g. refunds, warranty services, paperwork, internal relations, overheads).
2. Redesigning faulty products and rectifying manufacturing faults.
3. Discontinuing products that cannot be fixed.
4. Failure to meet deadlines due to slowdowns in production or fixing bad units.
5. The business itself might become unsustainable.
6. Product liability, especially product safety.
7. Lost opportunity due to being noncompetitive.
8. Lost business through customer dissatisfaction.
9. Loss of operating licenses.
10. Loss of business through customer dissatisfaction.
11. Loss of competitive position due to customer dissatisfaction.

Improving quality can minimize various costs and improve profitablity. In fact, quality can be free.

The simplest way to improve quality is to start very early at the design white-collar stage. Prevent errors; the sooner an error is nipped in the bud, the less it costs. The ideal is to aim for zero defects.

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Based on Phillip B. Crοsby. 1979. Quαlity is Free: The art of making quality certain. (New York: New American Library).