Juran defined the basic quality problem as “to strike the optimum balance between cost of quality and value of quality for each quality characteristic and to do so in the lower levels of organisation”, explaining that increased conformance reduces the losses which are due to defectives but...

Applying quality cost techniques within an organization can be very difficult, and problems may arise at any stage from planning the programme through to corrective action. Seeks to illustrate the difficulties experienced with quality costs by two quality assurance managers working in very...

Provides an overview of UK public and private sector organisations’ use of performance information relating to service quality. While they have made some headway in improving the range of performance information they have available, and in their use of such information, significant problems...

Small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are coming under increasing market pressures due to larger more agile companies encroaching on their markets and increasing integration in the supply chain. Thus SMEs need to increase their innovativeness to improve and survive. The aim of this paper...