Cost of Quality (COQ)
“Cost of Quality (COQ)” is a tool/technique for the process “Estimate costs”.
Assumptions about costs of quality may be used to prepare the activity cost estimate.
“Cost of Quality (COQ)” is a tool/technique for the process “Plan quality management”.
Cost of quality includes all costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in preventing nonconformance to requirements, appraising the product or service for conformance to requirements, and failing to meet requirements Failure costs are also called cost of poor quality. Figure 8-5 provides some examples to consider in each area.
Cost of Conformance Cost of Nonconformance Prevention Costs
(Build a quality product)
– Training
– Document processes
– Equipment – Time to do it right Appraisal Costs
(Assess the quality)
– Testing
– Destructive testing loss – Inspections Money spent during the project to avoid failures Internal Failure Costs
(Failures found by the project)
– Rework – Scrap External Failure Costs
(Failures found by the customer)
– Liabilities
– Warranty work – Lost business Money spent during and after the project because of failures Figure 8-5. Cost of Quality
This definition was found in the PMBOK V5
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