This is a phrase you will encounter sometimes. “The Cost of Quality” is a concept.

Let’s say you have a product, and you do no QA/QC on it. For a while, you might do fine. The product might really be great, and not fail. Then, inevitably, it happens…. something goes wrong. You get a bad lot that gets sold and winds up hurting people. You then get sued and lose, and have to pay millions of dollars in damages, which of course makes you go out of business.

Your company is dead.

Now go back in time to the beginning of the company, this time with QA/QC in place. Sure, you have to pay for it. You need to hire Quality Engineers at $60k+ each, etc. You need to create documentation. You need to have approval processes in place. You need to inspect product off the line. You need to do a LOT of things, all of which cost money. But guess what? When that bad lot gets made, you catch it before it goes out! No one gets hurt. No one sues you for millions of dollars, and no one puts your company out of business.

Your company gets to live another day.

This is the concept of the Cost of Quality. If you put money into Quality BEFORE bad things happen, you have a chance of averting something awful that will put you out of business because it costs you much MORE to fight the lawsuits than it does to hire the people to prevent them.

Now think about people in the world, whom you will meet, that complain about Quality and how it’s a burden. Thoughts?