Quality costing: The lessons learnt from a study carried out in two phases

This paper reports the main findings of a research investigation into quality costing in an organisation manufacturing industrial valves. The study was carried out in two separate phases. It is concluded from the work that presentation of quality costs to senior management using the classical prevention-appraisal-failure categorisation is not as effective as presenting the costs based on the activities with which they are familiar and can be seen to relate to other operating costs. Furthermore, the use of quality costs to focus management attention on quality and improvement is not always successful. In this study, the relatively small size of the costs reported were interpreted by management as indicating that the quality performance of the organisation was satisfactory, when, in fact, it was not. It is also pointed out that the quality cost collection exercise is much easier when carried out for second and subsequent times.