The economics of quality

The chapter title The costs of quality’, as frequent as it is ambiguous and restricting, has been avoided deliberately. With all due respect for the conventional approach to the issue of quality economics, regarded for years as incontrovertible, the time has come for a critical review in this area, too: it is more than natural that the evolution of quality should bring a parallel evolution in the theories regarding the relationship between quality and the company’s economic results and a rethinking of measurement and assessment tools.