Quality professionals are gearing up for another year of spending—on everything from CMMs to software to services—and most of you will be starting now. The first quarter of 2017 is spending season for quality professionals, and January in particular is the big spending month.

Our 17th annual Quality Spending Survey looks at what people will be spending money on, why they’ll be spending it, and how this has changed from year to year. As with years past, the idea behind the study is to gather information on spending for capital equipment, software and services. We wanted to learn the actual spending for quality equipment, software and services compared to the projected amount; the change in your approach to quality as compared to a year ago; overall spending on equipment/services; and the change in budgeted quality equipment and service categories.