CROSBYS CONCEPT OF COST OF

QUALITY
The only performance measurement is the cost of quality. The cost of quality is the expense of

nonconformance. Crosby notes that most companies spend 15 to 20 percent of their sales dollars on quality costs. A

company with a well-run quality management program can achieve a cost of quality that is less than 2.5 percent of

sales, primarily in the prevention and appraisal categories. Crosbys program calls for measuring and publicizing the

cost of poor quality. Quality cost data are useful in calling problems to managements attention, selecting

opportunities for corrective action, and tracking quality improvement over time. Such data provide visible proof of

improvement and recognition of achievement. Juran also supports this theme

The only performance standard is Zero Defects. Crosby feels that the Zero Defects (ZD) concept is

widely misunderstood and resisted. Zero Defects is not a motivational program. It is as follows:

Zero Defects is a performance standard. It is the standard of the craftsperson regardless of his or

her assignment. The theme of ZD is doing it right the first time. That means concentrating on preventing defects

rather than just finding and fixing them.

People are conditioned to believe that error is inevitable; thus they not only accept error, they

anticipate it. It does not bother us to make a few errors in our work. . . . To err is human. We all have our own

standards in business or academic life-our own points at which errors begin to bother us. It is good to get an A in

school, but it may be OK to pass a course with a C.

We do not maintain these standards, however, when it comes to our personal life. If we did, we

should expect to be shortchanged every now and then when we cash our paycheck; we should expect hospital nurses

to drop a constant percentage of newborn babies. . . . We as individuals do not tolerate these things. We have a dual

standard: one for ourselves and one for our work.

Most human error is caused by lack of attention rather than lack of knowledge. Lack of attention is created when we
assume that error is inevitable. If we consider this condition carefully and pledge ourselves to make a constant
conscious effort to do our jobs right the first time, we will take a giant step toward eliminating the waste of rework,
scrap, and repair that increases cost and reduces individual opportunity.

Crosby summarized his approach to management in what he refers to as the Absolutes of Quality Management,
which answer the following questions.

1. What is quality?

2. What system is needed to cause quality?

3. What performance standard should be used?

4. What measurement system is required?

1. The First Absolute: The Definition of Quality is conformance to Requirements.

2. The Second Absolute: The System of Quality Is Prevention.

3. The Third Absolute: the Performance Standard Is Zero Defects.

4. The Fourth Absolute: The Measurement of Quality Is the Price of Nonconformance.

Cost of Quality
Until the 1950s, manager assumed it was important to improve quality because defects were costly. But they had no
idea just how costly defects were and consequently did not know how much they should improve. They had no
yardstick for measuring the costs of quality. In addition to emphasizing managements role in quality, Joseph Juran
and Philip Crosby gave managers a means of answering a critical question which remained in their minds: How
much quality is enough?

The cost of achieving a given level of quality is divided into avoidable costs and unavoidable costs. Unavoidable costs
are those related to preventing defects. These include inspection, sampling, sorting, and other quality control
initiatives.

Avoidable costs are related to defects and product failures. These include scrapped materials, labor hours required for
rework and repair, complaint processing, and financial losses resulting from unhappy customers. Juran and Crosby
called avoidable costs gold in the mine because investment in quality improvement can sharply reduce them and
lead to substantial savings. With Juran and Crosbys cost of quality concept, manager could calculate when additional
expenditures on prevention were justified.

Unlike Juran and Deming, Crosbys program is primarily behavioral. He places more emphasis on management and
organizational processes for changing corporate culture and attitudes than on the use of statistical techniques. Like
Juran and unlike Deming, his approach fits well within existing organizational structures.

Cost of Quality Attitude:

In fact in daily life we pay the price for our not so good attitude in rupees, or in the form of lost respect or rapport or
even anger and frustration which are the emotional costs. How to plan to prevent them is every bodys responsibility.
Best price or zero cost is the prerogative cost. It is the compliment or comment given to you by your customer, by your
family or by they boss when he or she ask that has he or she paid you enough for your quality work and are you really
happy with him on the given reward!

Quality Management Characteristics for the Future

To succeed in the global marketplace for now and in the future, organizations will have to operate according to the
principles of quality management. Such companies will have the following characteristics:

A total commitment to continually increasing value for customers, investors, and employees.

A firm understanding that market driven means that quality is defined by customers, not the company.
 A commitment to leading people with a bias for continuous improvement and communication.

A recognition that sustained growth requires the simultaneous achievement of four objectives all the time,

forever: (a) customer satisfaction, (b) cost leadership, (c) effective human resources, and (d) integration with the

supplier base.

A commitment to fundamental improvement through knowledge, skills, problem solving, and teamwork.
Companies that develop these characteristics will be those that fully institutionalize the principles of quality
management. Consequently, quality management as both a practice and a profession has a bright future. In fact, in
terms of succeeding in the global marketplace, quality management is the future. Consequently, more and more
companies are making quality management the way they do business, and more and more institutions of higher
education are offering quality management courses and programs.

Kaoru Ishikawa
The Total View of Quality
The concept of customer value represents a dramatic improvement over the traditional approach to quality, the
conformance to specified standards approach. It extends the concept of quality to include user perceptions and use
consequences. However, it still falls short of the concept of Total Quality, which stresses the importance of quality in
every aspect of an organization.

Perhaps the Japanese best express this broader and more holistic view of quality, Ishikawa states: Narrowly
interpreted, quality means quality of product. Broadly interpreted, quality means quality of work, quality of service,
quality of information, quality of process, quality of division, quality of people including workers, engineers, managers,
and executives, quality of system, quality of company, quality of objective, etc. This view of quality may at first seem
to be too idealistic. However, managers who are committed to this view of quality have pragmatic solutions for
translating the word quality into organizational realities.

As Imai suggests, it all begins with the quality of people. He states:

There is very little agreement on what constitutes quality. In its broadest sense, quality is anything that can be
improved. When speaking of quality one tends to think first in terms of product quality. When discussed in the
context of kaizen strategy nothing could be further off the mark. The foremost concern here is with the quality of
people. The three building blocks of a business are hardware, software, and human ware. Only after human ware is
squarely in place should the hardware and software aspects of a business be considered. Building quality into people
means helping them become kaizen conscious.

This total view of quality includes all of the above quality themes we have already seen, integrating them into a
comprehensive approach to continuous improvement.

The Future of Quality Management

In an article for Quality Digest, another quality pioneer Armand Feigenbaum explains several trends that will shape
the future of quality management. Those trends are as follows:
 Demanding global customers. The provision of quality begets an ever-increasing demand for quality.

Todays customers share two common characteristics: (a) they are part of regional trade alliances such as the

Americas, Europe, and Asia: and (b) they expect both high quality and added value.

Shifting customer expectations. Increasingly, todays global customer is interested not just in the quality of

a product provided but also the quality of the organization that backs it up. Customers want an excellent product or

service from an organization that also provides accurate billing, reliable delivery, and after-purchase support.

Opposing economic pressures. The global marketplace exerts enormous, unrelenting pressure on

organizations to continually improve quality while simultaneously reducing the prices they charge for goods and

services. The key to achieving higher quality and lower prices for customers is the reduction of the expenses

associated with satisfying unhappy customers expenses that amount to as much as 25% of the cost of sales in

many companies.

New approaches to management. Companies that succeed in the global marketplace have learned that

you manage budgets, but lead people. The old approach of providing an occasional seminar or motivational speech

for employees without making any fundamental changes in the way the organization operates will no longer work.
The total in total quality indicates a concern for quality in the broadest sense what has come to be known as the
Big Q. Big Q refers to quality of products, services, people, processes, and environments. Correspondingly, Little
Q refers to a narrower concern that focuses on the quality of one of these elements or individual quality criteria within
an individual element.

Which Q Approach?
QMS implementation has to be a systemic approach but which system to choose depends where you are and how far
the management is committed for quality. Each QMS requires companies to deploy various quality tools for the
improvement of quality.

INTERNATIONAL QUALITY AWARDS

A focus on total quality has permeated organizations throughout the world. Numerous countries and regions of the
world have established awards and award criteria.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) has been one of the most powerful catalysts of total quality n
the United States, and indeed, throughout the world. More importantly, the Awards Criteria for Performance
excellence establishes a framework for integrating total quality principles and practices in any organization. Many
other award programs are similar in nature to the Baldrige criteria.

THE DEMING PRIZE

The Deming Application Prize was instituted in 1951 by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) in
recognition and appreciation of W. Edwards Demings achievements in statistical quality control and his friendship
with the Japanese people. The Deming Prize has several categories, including prizes for individuals, factories, and
small companies, and the Deming application prize, which is an annual award presented to a company or a division of
a company that has achieved distinctive performance improvements through the application of Company-wide Quality
Control (CWQC). As defined by JUSE, CWQC is

A system of activities to assure that quality products and services required by customers are economically designed
produced and supplied while respecting the principle of customer-orientation and the overall public well-being. These
quality assurance activities involve market research, research and development, design, purchasing, production,
inspection and sales, as well as all other related activities inside and outside the company. Through everyone in the
company understanding both statistical concepts and methods, through their application to all the aspects of quality
assurance and through repeating the cycle of rational planning, implementation, evaluation and action, CWQC aims
to accomplish business objectives.

The judging criteria consist of a checklist of 10 major categories: policies, the organization and its operations,
education and dissemination, information gathering, communication and its utilization, analysis, standardization,
control/management, quality assurance, effects, and future plans. Each major category is divided into subcategories,
or checking points. For example, the policy category includes policies pursued for management, quality, and quality
control; methods for establishing policies; appropriateness and consistency of policies; utilization of statistical
methods; communication and dissemination of policies; checks of policies and the status of their achievement; and
the relationship between policies and long- and short-term plans. Each category is weighted equally.

Hundreds of companies apply for the award each year. After an initial application accepted as eligible for the process,
the company must submit a detailed description o its quality practices. Based on review of the written descriptions,
only a few companies believed to be successful in CWQC are selected for a site visit. The site visit consists of a
company presentation, in-depth questioning by examiners, and an executive session with top managers. Examiners
visit plants and are free to ask any worker any question.

The Deming Prize is awarded to all companies that meet the prescribed standard. However, the small number of
awards given each year is an indication of the difficulty of achieving the standard. The objectives are to ensure that a
company has so thoroughly deployed a quality process that it will continue to improve long after a prize is awarded.
The application process has no losers. For companies that do not qualify, the examination process is automatically
extended up to two times over three years.

European Quality Award

In October 1991, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) in partnership with the European
Commission and the European Organization for Quality announced the creation of the European Quality Award. The
award was designed to increase awareness throughout the European Community, and businesses in particular, of the
growing importance of quality to their competitiveness in the increasingly global market and to their standards of life.
The European Quality Award consists of two parts: the European Quality Prize, given to companies that demonstrate
excellence in quality management practice by meeting the award criteria, and the European Quality Award, awarded
to the most successful applicant. In 1992, four prizes and one award were granted for the first time.

The award process is similar to the Deming Prize and Baldrige Award. The assessment is based on customer
satisfaction, business results, processes, leadership, people satisfaction, resources, people management, policy and
strategy, and impact on society. Like Baldrige, results including customer satisfaction, people (employee)
satisfaction, and impact on society constitute a high percentage of the total score. These are driven by enablers
constitute a high percentage of the total score. These are driven by enablers the means by which an organization
approaches its business responsibilities. The categories are roughly equivalent to those in Baldrige. However, the
results criteria of people satisfaction, customer satisfaction, impact on society, and business results are somewhat
different. The impact on society results category focuses on the perceptions of the company by the community at
large
and the companys approach to the quality of life, the environment, and the preservation of global resources. The
 European Quality Award criteria place greater emphasis on this category than is placed on the public responsibility
item in the Baldrige Award criteria.

Canadian Awards for Business Excellence

Canadas National Quality Institute (NQI) recognizes Canadas foremost achievers of excellence through the
prestigious Canada Awards for Excellence. NQI is a nonprofit organization designed to stimulate and support quality-
driven innovation within all Canadian enterprises and institutions, including business, government, education, and
health care. The Canadian Awards for Business Excellence quality criteria are similar in structure to the Baldrige
Award Criteria, with some key differences. The major categories and items within each category are:

1. Leadership: strategic direction, leadership involvement, and outcomes.

2. Customer focus: voice of the customer, management of customer relationships, measurement, and

outcomes.

3. Planning for improvement: development and content of improvement plan, assessment, and outcomes.

4. People focus: human resource planning, participatory environment, continuous learning environment,

employee satisfaction, and outcomes.

5. Process optimization: process definition, process control, process improvement, and outcomes.

6. Supplier focus: partnering and outcomes.

Australian Business Excellence Awards

The Australian Quality Awards (now called Business Excellence Awards) were developed independently from the
Baldrige Awards in 1988. The awards are administered by the Australian Quality Awards Foundation, a subsidiary of
the Australian Quality council. Four levels of awards are given.

1. The Business Improvement Level: encouragement recognition for Progress Toward Business Excellence or

Foundation in Business Excellence;

2. The Award Level: representing Australian best practices; recognition as a winner or finalist;

3. The Award Gold Level: open only to former award winners; represents a revalidation and ongoing

improvement;

4. The Australian Business Excellence Prize: open only to former award winners; represents international best

practices evident throughout the organization.

As with Baldrige, the framework emphasizes the holistic and interconnected nature of the management process. The
criteria are benchmarked with the Baldrige criteria and the European Business Excellence Model. One of the
distinctive aspects of Australias program is solid union support.

ISO 9000: what it is

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a federation of the national standards bodies of nations
from around the world. ISO 9000 is about standardizing the systemic approach organizations everywhere take to
managing and improving the processes that ultimately result in their products and services. Specifically, ISO 9000
 establishes the requirements for quality management systems (QMS) that must be employed by all organizations
registered to the standard. Registered organizations should enjoy:

Wider customer acceptance of products and services

Improved effectiveness and reliability of its processes

Improved quality of products and services

Improved organizational performance and competitiveness

Since ISO 9000 was first released in 1987 it has evolved through two revisions, the first in 1994 and the most recent
at the end of 2000. This evolution has aligned it more closely with the Total Quality Management philosophy. It
seemed too many observers, including the authors that the 1987 and 1994 versions shied away from association with
TQM, or from acknowledging its existence. Even the 2000 version, which borrows heavily from TQM, scarcely
acknowledges it. The fact is, of course, that with the tutelage of W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, the Japanese
started the development of the management system we now know as TQM in 1950. Over the years several Japanese
experts Kaoru Ishikawa, Shigeo Shingo, Taiichi Ohno, and others emerged, and by the early 1970s TQM had
been widely accepted in Japan. By 1980 the Western world began taking note. By the time ISO 9000: 1987 was
released, TQM was a mature management system, well understood by many in the West. It is clear that ISOs
Technical Committee 176 (TC 176), which was charged with ISO 9000s development, borrowed some TQM
elements, most notably its documentation requirements. ISO 9000: 1994 moved a bit closer to TQM, at least
mentioning (though not requiring) continual improvement. But any acknowledgement of TQMs influence or superiority
seemed to be deliberately avoided. ISO 9000:2000 made a giant leap in comparison, especially in the area of
continual improvement, which has gone from receiving just cursory treatment to becoming a firm requirement.