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62 Posts
I have thought of cost of quality in two parts, cot of poor quality and cost of good quality. Poor quality costs are internal and external failure costs, good quality costs are prevention and appraisal. To make this more confusing, the older terms might be better described for today's managers as:
- Prevention - now investment
- Appraisal- now monitoring
- Internal failure- now waste
- External failure - now downstream consequences
5 Replies
111 Posts
Doug; good thoughts. I just discussed this same issue with a client on Wednesday. Do you see these distinctions as part of the Glossary definitions? We certainly want to include this distinctions in the text for the CQM/OE and any update we provide for training and the updated CoQ text books.
16 Posts
I thought this might be a good thread to add this:
One member sent a comment to QP staff regarding the definition of “cost of quality” that’s included in the glossary
The current entry reads as follows:
"Cost of quality (COQ): Another term for COPQ. It is considered by some to be synonymous with COPQ but is considered by others to be unique. While the two concepts emphasize the same ideas, some disagree as to which concept came first and which categories are included in each".
This member suggested that in order to avoid confusion that Appraisal and Prevention are not due to Poor Quality, all four cost categories are typically grouped under COQ. The internal and external failure costs are grouped specifically under COPQ. i.e COPQ is a subset of COQ. We could also separate Appraisal and Prevention costs to COGQ Cost of Good Quality.
Thoughts or reactions to this suggestion?
One member sent a comment to QP staff regarding the definition of “cost of quality” that’s included in the glossary
The current entry reads as follows:
"Cost of quality (COQ): Another term for COPQ. It is considered by some to be synonymous with COPQ but is considered by others to be unique. While the two concepts emphasize the same ideas, some disagree as to which concept came first and which categories are included in each".
This member suggested that in order to avoid confusion that Appraisal and Prevention are not due to Poor Quality, all four cost categories are typically grouped under COQ. The internal and external failure costs are grouped specifically under COPQ. i.e COPQ is a subset of COQ. We could also separate Appraisal and Prevention costs to COGQ Cost of Good Quality.
Thoughts or reactions to this suggestion?
111 Posts
The terms for Cost of Quality and Cost of Poor Quality have been coined by authors in the 1950s to 1980s in books published inside and outside of Quality Press. Cost of Poor Quality does pre-date some of the Cost of Quality texts from Quality Press. Phil Crosby used both terms. I think it is entirely possible that since the Cost of Quality committee under the Quality Management Division still exists, we can continue this conversation to move the terminology into the future. Doug Wood, current chair of the CoQ committee already suggested another distinction among the four PAF model categories. Please stay involved and help with this continuous improvement
66 Posts
This is somewhat of a side issue to the Quality Glossary but knowing that Doug is a CoQ/CoPQ researcher, I was curious as to whether or not he has any go to sources fro trying to measure CoQ or CoPQ? This information (in my experience), can be difficult to locate.
Gretchen Peterson
Gretchen Peterson
111 Posts
Gretchen Peterson . Doug most certainly does. His text book by Quality Press does have some excellent approaches for identifying the cost of quality. There are other approaches in the 3rd edition of Principles of Quality Cost. You will find others in works by Dr. H. James Harrington, who wrote in the 1980s and 1990's about CoQ. We are starting to develop thoughts of Risk Analysis in considering costs for the PAF model and in how to classify costs as to Prevention, Appraisal, Internal and External Failure.
