Have you noticed lately that much of the things we purchase today don’t seem to have the same level of quality they had ten, twenty, or more years ago? Back in the 1980’s, in response to the high level of quality coming out of Japan, every auto manufacturer instituted a push to improve the quality of their products. I’ve noticed that in many ways, albeit small ways, the quality of the automobiles I’ve purchased over the past ten years has begun to degenerate. This is resulting in my now considering a different auto manufacturer for the next vehicle.

During the past two or three years there has been a rash of quality problems coming out of the food processing industry, often meat being contaminated as a resulting of shut cuts being taken in the clean-up process. Now we are seeing contamination of fruits and vegetables. When finally resolved, it will undoubtedly be the result of some failures or short cuts taken in one or more of the quality assurance processes.

In the days of Total Quality Management (TQM) we learned that the cost of quality (this phrase actually is intended to mean the cost of poor quality) is comprised of four major cost elements:

1. prevention costs,
2. detection costs,
3. internal failure costs, and
4. external failure costs

Prevention is usually where these failures and short cuts occur, and yet prevention is where we can get the biggest bang for our buck. External failure is always the most expensive of the four cost categories.

A medical equipment manufacturer on the west coast found this out the hard way. Their product, something similar to x-ray treatment machinery, was sold to hospitals and clinics around the world at a cost of millions of dollars per unit. The company purchased a small, but very accurate, movement measuring and controlling device used to control the location of the treatment beam. Each of these machines used anywhere from four to twelve devices, and in order to improve their profit margin the company sought the lowest priced device to install. All was well for about the first year and then these devices began to fail in the field, resulting in an average cost of $1,500 to replace each of these $80.00 devices. The prevention cost was an additional $45.25. The replacement unit, purchased from a New York manufacturer, sold for $125.25. You can do the math: $1500 minus 45.25 is a savings of $1,454.75 per device. Even at just four units per machine that’s over $5,800 per machine. The last I heard, there were zero failures out of the 12,000 units shipped.

Although we most often assume manufacturing when we talk about quality, we can see examples of good and bad quality in many service areas. Ever go into a grocery store and wait in line to pay for the items you wish to purchase? You look around and there are twenty-two cash registers on the line but only five have cashiers. I’ve been tempted more than once to just leave everything in the shopping cart and walk out. Or how about the doctor’s or dentist’s office; you make an appointment for 3:00 p.m., you arrive at 2:52 p.m. and you wait until 3:43 p.m. for them to see you. Like your time is meaningless compared to theirs.

There is a dentist I know that, in order to provide better service to his patients, has implemented the International Quality Management System program ISO 9001, and is now practicing the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC) principles of Six Sigma. I recent spent two days in Arlington, Virginia with the United States Postal Service – Office of the Inspector General doing Statistical Process Control (SPC) training for forty or so Postal Service Employees so that the Service can keep track of and improve various control areas with the Service. The service sector is slowly embracing quality in every respect while the manufacturing sector is giving it up and sending it to India.