How much do we lose on non-quality?

The economic basis of national quality efforts is now seen as natural and beyond argument by most quality people. In order to obviate the fact that quality work is an essential contributor to national prosperity, we must incorporate quality indices into the current national economic indices. The national cost of non-quality is a natural index. The cost of waste caused by inadequate designing, planning and working practices in the economy are taking their toll from our treasury; in fact, as much as 30 percent of the gross national product is (carefully) estimated as cost of non-quality. One way of measuring and controlling this waste is to define and implement a national cost of non-quality index. Another approach, proposed here, is the creation of a simpler index, one that measures losses incurred to the public due to faulty products and services. This index is easy to measure and may serve as an indicator of the quality of products and services produced and provided to the population. Data collected in a survey are presented and rules for data collection and analysis are discussed.