This is a million dollar question and could be a hot debate topic among the quality analysts across the world. Is Quality for free? This question arose when the book called “Quality is free” by a renowned author “Philip B. Crosby”, a Quality guru was published in the late 80’s. So Is Quality free? When we look at it, we need to really understand the term quality. To define quality everyone had their own ways but I believe all meant to say that Quality is one term that will be addressed to a product or service which meets exactly what is needed.
The question brings out the quantitative subject in quality and thus when it is quantified it can have perceptions which may cross boundaries that differ from persons. But what does that book “Quality is free” really say? (Remember the book I addressed before starting this chaos) So if quality is for free, is the effort put in achieving the quality, a goof off? No says the author’s intentions.
From an organization’s view on quality, it is absolutely free to implement which would reduce the non conformities and increase the productivity of the product or service being developed. The cost occurred in achieving this is called the quality cost which incurs the effort put in it. This cost is added to the product/service’s cost and hence quality becomes a billable value addition to the product/service being offered. Is this global trend correct? This is what I have in my mind whenever I think on this. Is Quality mean to be a value addition for a product?
Ever wondered why a branded shirt costs more than a normal one? By taking out this example, I believe it is easy to understand the real concept behind the trend around us. As I mentioned earlier, it is the quality cost which is implied to the cost of the material purchased, as the cost involved in implementing to attain the quality is more in the case of former. Is this really true? If quality is not meant to be free then how do we measure the cost? This will be the immediate questions that pops out after all these conclusions.
The cost to attain quality is measured as a sum of the costs involved in two major roles.
• Costs of control
o Prevention costs
o Appraisal costs • Costs of failure control (Nonconformance)
o Internal failure cost
o External failure cost
The ultimate goal of quality management is
to attain a zero defect product/service and hence they will concentrate more on the prevention and appraisal phase as the cost involved here will help in reducing the costs of failure control which plays the major piece of a pie when not managed properly. The following shows the relationship between quality vs. cost. This is the juran’s approach on cost over quality and it’ll be clearly visible through this that how cost plays the role in attaining the quality of the product. This also protrays a fact on what has been discussed so far.
As you can evidence throught this that the total cost achieved in producing a 100% compliant product is service is not so high or have a higher difference with the cost attained in producing it. Thus quality can be termed as free as it doesn't much contribute to the total cost of the product/service being offered.
"Then why does the branded shirt is costlier than the normal one?" I hope this is what that runs in one's mind while reaching the end of this now. There are various other factors that adds cost to the product. For eg: Marketing is one such kind of factor. Hence it is not the well premeditated quality that really adds up to the cost but there are various other factors that makes up the whole piece.
This is totally a perception of mine and it is not through intention, if any of the data posted here conflicts theories of legends.
