Quality Management, Term 5

"QUALITY IS FREE"
Quality is one of the most talked about subject not only by academia but also by leaders
of well known organisations around the world. Philosophy and common sense tend to see
qualities as related either to subjective feelings or to objective facts. The qualities of
something depends on the criteria being applied to and from neutral point of view, does
not determine its value (both the philosophical value as well as economical value).
Subjectively, something might be good because it is useful, because it is beautiful, or
simply because it exists. Determining or finding qualities therefore involves
understanding what is useful, what is beautiful and what exists (Cargile, 1995). Philip
Crosby, one of the pioneers in Quality management, sees these definitions as the first
erroneous assumption of quality. He defines quality as "conformance to requirements",
and this has become the standard definition of quality- not just in manufacturing but
universally across all modern product engineering and other industries. Crosby thought
of this in terms of management attitudes. This brings us to our first argument;
1) Commitments to standards
- Management must be genuinely interest in people and result. If management
have the mindset to invest in quality and certification for the benefit of the
organisation, then there is no question that quality is free. A person (or an
organisation) can only give what they have from within. Any kind of a
masquerade would only result in temporary satisfaction or a pseudo assurance
of quality. Quality does not mean just processes, documentation, etc. It also
means the establishment of systems that invoke this internal seed of quality
from within the person or an organisation. Therefore management has to get
right in there and be active when it comes to quality. In other words with
management commitments to standards raises the level of visibility for quality
and ensures everyone’s cooperation so long as there is some progress.
Crosby’s definition avoids the subjectiveness of the word “quality”, especially in the
abstract “quality of life” sense. Crosby’s model “Quality is free” stands in contrast to the
conventional wisdom that you achieve quality by testing and throwing out or fixing
defects. With that model you achieved quality by testing, fixing and discarding more – at
higher cost. With this, we arrive at our second argument;
2) The newer model of “doing it right the first time”
- This model explains that if you don’t put defects in that you don’t have to pay
to find, fix or remove them
- We believe that quality, for all practical purposes, never takes longer or costs
more than non-quality. Working without the quality-generating behaviours will
hurt us in a matter of weeks or days, not a matter of months.

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 Quality Management, Term 5

- So low quality will in general come back to hurt you before the release. That
is, before you get the pay-off from any time saved.

a) Much of Quality Is Free is dedicated to an accounting system showing

that (using definition of quality, adherence to specifications) costs are
reduced and reduced in the short term. It seems that the basic approach is
centred on reducing costs through improved quality.

b) Quality is free. It's not a gift, but it is free. What costs money are the un-
quality things

- all the actions that involve not doing jobs right the first time. Quality is
not only free; it is an honest-to-everything profit maker. Every penny you
don't spend on doing things wrong, over, or instead becomes half a penny
right on the bottom line. In these days of 'who knows what is going to
happen to our business tomorrow' there aren't many ways left to make a
profit improvement. If you concentrate on making quality certain, you can
probably increase your profit by an amount equal to 5 to 10 percent of
your sales. That is a lot of money for free

- The quality manager must be clear, right from the start, that zero defects
is not a motivation program. Its purpose is to communicate to all
employees the literal meaning of the words 'zero defects' and the thought
that everyone should do things right the first time.

Our last argument is related to costs as follows;

3) Non-conformance cost

- It is said that cost of quality is non-conformance costs which includes costs

such as wages of redoing, loss of opportunities, loss of customers etc. All
these costs mentioned we believed are the cost for un-quality products not
quality. As per Crosby’s philosophy of quality is the conformance to
requirements, he meant that we have to complete the requirements well
before we build/make the product. And if we did meet the requirements in the
first place than we wouldn’t incur these costs in the first place. So should any
costs aroused it solely to do with un-quality product which can traced back to
untrained staff or unfit resources etc.

4) Conformance cost

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 Quality Management, Term 5

- Conformance cost includes costs such as Inspection, Control, Assurance and

Total Quality. Although these costs may directly related to meeting
requirements, however it is not necessarily means it’s the cost of quality. In
accounting terms these costs can be classified as part of the product costs.
These will be incurred and be paid for anyways, no matter what. A company
must have a product to sell and to get those products ready and to ensure
that they have it; these obligations must be met, regardless. And if the
product meets the customers expectation that is only where we can see
quality. Quality is invisible but it is measured by the cost of non conformance.
If customers is satisfied although they won’t use the term but they assess
quality instinctively using Juan’s definition in this case “fitness for purpose”.
Seeing customers smile, is priceless.

In conclusion, why spend this entire time find, fixing and fighting when you could prevent
the incident in the first place. It all lies in the hand of management, they have to get it
right and be active when it comes to quality. What should be obvious from the beginning
is that people perform to the standard of their leaders. If management think people don’t
care then people won’t care. Prevention is not hard-it is just hard to sell. Therefore,
“Quality is free but it is not a gift”.

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 Quality Management, Term 5

REFERENCES:

1. Basu, R and Wright, J Nevan (2003). “Quality Beyond Six Sigma”.

Butterworth and Heinemann

2. Cargile, J. (1995). qualities. in Honderich, T. (Ed.) (2005). The Oxford

Companion to Philosophy (2nd ed.). Oxford

3. Crosby, Philip (1979). “Quality if free”. Retrieved from

www.philipcrosby.com

4. http://www.stellman-greene.com

5. http://www.c2.com

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