Investing to Improve Product Quality

Quality problems have traditionally been measured in term of cost penalties, and therefore efforts to improve quality have been aimed at a reduction in such factors as scrap or rework. When quality is viewed as a potential company asset however, a fundamental change in attitude is needed, because an asset is an attribute that can systematically be increased in value. Techniques have been developed at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) which enable the company‐wide benefits of improving product quality to be included in a financial evaluation of technology needed to bring about the improvement. Various examples are given relating to investments in advanced manufacturing technology, and these show how quality improvement affects the technical specification that is required for new plant.