Cost of Quality for Government

The American society for Quality (ASQ) has recently published ASQ TR2:2018: Cost of Quality: Guidelines for Development, Implementation and Monitoring to Improve Quality and Performance.1 Efforts were made during the Technical Report drafting process to ensure that examples were provided which could apply to government services, rather than just private sector production. The concept of "Cost of Quality" was first described by Joseph Juran in 1951 and Armand Feigenbaum expanded on the topic in 1956.2 Since that time, systems have been developed by the private sector to monitor and measure these costs. The concept is often described as "cost of poor quality". ASQ sets forth guidance for development of a Cost of Quality Program in TR2:2018.