Quality Cost Quality and Reliability the Cost

Quality Cost

Quality and Reliability

The cost of quality, in the context of management and the business side of operations, is quite different from (though related to) the cost of quality from a consumer perspective. The old adage, "you get what you pay for" is a word of warning or reminder to consumers that higher quality items tend to be more expensive, and thus the "cost of quality" is simply a higher price tag for consumers. For the companies actually producing goods and services, this same perspective might apply to certain materials and equipment procured for use in the production process, but this is only one of many "costs of quality" that business must endure (Accounting for Management, 2012). Factors of time, process controls, testing, correcting mistakes as quickly and completely as possible, and a variety of business- and industry-specific concerns all impact the costs that a company incurs in making and delivering a quality product to its consumers (Accounting for Management, 2012). Finding the proper balance between the cost of quality and the price that consumers are willing to pay is an essential part of proper planning for any business (Accounting for Management, 2012).

The YouTube video titled, "The Cost of Quality: Inspirational Stories" provides a brief yet very compelling lesson on why putting in the necessary expenditure to achieve quality is so important. The point of the video seems to be that it is only the failures of quality systems that are truly noticeable, and that the costs of these failures often dramatically outweigh the costs of achieving consistent quality. Through the representation of some truly catastrophic failures, this video graphically and clearly illustrates the importance of quality.

Accelerated Life Testing refers to efforts to test products and other outputs in a manner that reflects the use and wear they are expected to receive during their life cycle in the hands of consumers, but at an accelerated pace that allows a company to find problems and/or means of enhancing the product/output's performance without needing to wait the often long periods of time (years, for a large number of consumer products) that a true product life cycle would take (Bagdonavi-ius & Nikulin, 2002). Car engines that are run nonstop for days on end can be seen as one very simple example of accelerated life testing in the real world; though an actual driver would not run their car for days at a time without stopping, they will hope to get many hours' worth of use out of their car, and by leaving the engine on non-stop the manufacturing company can accelerate the life of the engine to find out if there are indeed any problems or if performance degrades as the engine continues to run. Using accelerated life testing enables companies to take a more proactive approach towards fixing quality issues, and also allows for the more rapid development of new products and of enhancements to or improved versions of old products (Bagdonavi-ius & Nikulin, 2002).