As a full time auditor for the past six years for one of the large management system registrars, I start every interview, from production personnel to the CEO, with the question: “Given all of your job responsibilities at this company, what does the word ‘quality’ mean in your work?” 

At the end of the day, nothing matters more than customer satisfaction. Fundamentally, this sounds quite simple; make the customer happy, and all is well. Keeping customers happy and loyal to your brand, however, is not as easy as it sounds. 

Readers of this column are a gentle lot and not likely to run afoul of criminal law but can end up in a similarly frustrating situation that limits their working life.

In these highly competitive times, it may seem as though improving productivity is the key to market share. Manufacturers often focus on improving productivity and managing, controlling and reducing costs. 

Traditionally, the beginning of a new year is a time of renewed energy, when people and businesses strive to improve upon the previous year and take stock of their processes. What’s working and what’s not working? Above all, what needs to change?

Do you collect quality data to catch problems on the production floor—but then never look at that data again? If so, you could be missing an opportunity to reap big rewards from your quality-improvement efforts.

Almost 30 years ago the Construction Industry Institute (CII) researched the “Costs of Quality Deviations in Design and Construction,” and concluded that, “The average cost of rework on industrial projects exceeds 12%.” Design deviations accounted for about 80% of the increased cost and construction deviations only 20%.

In 2011, Sipho Tjabadi, general manager, Eskom Quality Management, South Africa, spoke at the ASQ Audit Division Conference. To punctuate his keynote address’s points, Tjabadi brought a video titled “The Cost of Quality.”

Albert Einstein is widely credited as having defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

Cost of quality is often misunderstood, improperly measured, and underutilized.