Quality costs money
We all know that…
- Diamond rings don’t come cheap
- A Rolls Royce will cost you more than a Ford
- Great Yarmouth is not in the same league as the Maldives
Quality costs money
Quality is cheap
But we are told that quality is cheap…
- If you deliver on time, then you don’t get chase calls.
- If your systems work, then you won’t have to spend time on workarounds
- If you buy a Honda, it will spend less time in the garage than a Volvo
Quality is cheap
So is quality cheap or expensive?
It is worth being very, very, clear. Do you want quality or quality? Because quality and quality are not the same thing.
Getting it wrong could be very expensive.
Stupid name
What were those quality gurus thinking? Didn’t anybody ever tell them to keep things simple?
If you enjoyed this post click here for updates delivered to your inbox
Read another opinion
Image by Steve Jurvetson
James,
If you’re looking for more punishment then do have a read of Robert Pirsig’s second novel – Lila: An Inquiry into Morals – which is largely an exploration of what quality is and what it means.
You may have already read it. I really liked it.
Adrian
I will add it to my reading list, thanks for the tip
Hello James,
Building quality into the process of production is cheap in the sense that doing things right costs less in the long run if you take into account several costs including rework costs, refunding customers, repetitional damage and its impact on sales/market share.
Quality products as in luxury products (Mercedes, Apple, Harvard. Montessori Schools) are not cheap. Creating-delivering that kind of value costs money. So quality products on the whole are not cheap. This was evident recently in the meat scandal. Waitrose was hardly touched as it strives for high quality ingredients whereas lesser players like Tesco were impacted heavily.
As Wittgenstein made clear, the meaning of a word (any word) is not absolute or one picture of reality. The meaning of a word is dependent on how it is being used in the language game played. The Quality pioneers were talking about ‘quality as a practice and process’. They were not talking about luxury products.
All the best
maz
Absolutely Maz, I just think that a lot of “process quality” is about being absolutely clear and removing all confusion about what should happen next.
In that respect I can’t help but think it was a stupid choice of names, but I don’t suppose it is an issue worth dying in a ditch over.
James
Interesting perspective, James. I guess it depends on which side of the fence you are on. Cheap for the company, expensive for the customer. Does that make any more sense? No.
Annette :-)