Uses of Quality Cost Information (Report)

Uses of Quality Cost Information (Report):

Learning Objectives of this article:

  • What are the advantages and limitations of a quality cost report?


A quality cost report has several uses. First quality cost information helps managers see the financial significance of defects. Managers usually are not aware of the magnitude of their quality costs because these costs cut across departmental lines and are not normally tracked and accumulated by the cost system. Thus, when first presented with a quality cost report, managers often are surprised by the amount of cost attributable to poor quality.

Second quality cost information helps managers identify the relative importance of the quality problems faced by the firm. For example, the quality cost report may show that scrap is a major quality problem or that the company is incurring huge warranty costs. With this information, managers have a better idea of where to focus efforts.

Third, quality cost information helps managers see whether their quality costs are poorly distributed. In general, quality costs should be distributed more toward prevention and appraisal activities and less toward failures.

Limitations of Quality Cost Information:

Three limitations of quality cost information should be recognized.

  1. Simply measuring and reporting quality costs does not solve quality problems. Problems can be solved by taking actions.

  2. Results usually lag behind quality improvement programs. Initially quality cost may even increase as quality control systems are designed and installed. Decrease in these costs may not begin to occur until the quality program has been in effect for a year or more.

  3. The most important quality costs lost sales arising from customers ill will, is usually omitted from the quality cost report because it is difficult to estimate.

Typically during the initial years of a quality improvement program, the benefits of compiling a quality cost report outweigh the costs and limitations of the reports. As managers gain experience in balancing prevention and appraisal activities, the need for quality cost report often diminishes.

See

You may also be interested in other useful articles from “cost terms, concepts and classifications” chapter:

  1. Manufacturing and Non-manufacturing Costs
  2. Product Costs Versus Period Costs
  3. Cost Classifications on Financial Statement
  4. Cost Classifications for Predicting Cost Behavior (Variable and Fixed cost)
  5. Mixed or Semi variable Cost
  6. Cost classification for Assigning Costs to Cost Objects (Direct and Indirect Cost)
  7. Decision making costs – cost classification for decision making
  8. Quality Costs
  9. Further Classification of Labor Costs

Other Related Accounting Articles:

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