Quality and Economic Efficiency

Like any other activity in companies, quality management incurs costs. On the other hand, it leads to a reduction in costs by avoiding or reducing counter-productive and reactive output. It is vital, therefore, to investigate quality-based costs if quality management is to be controlled in economic terms. The objective throughout is to lower costs and, at the same time, increase quality. In the mechanical engineering sector in Germany, the annual expenditure on quality-assuring measures exceeds € 3 billion; this corresponds to around 4 % of sales, or approx. the average return on sales [ris].