The Control of Quality in Manufacturing #271514

There is an erroneous but wide-spread belief that quality and high cost go hand in hand. The existence of this feeling is readily explained, because it is the general practice to advertise quality as something worth paying for. From the purchasers standpoint this is very true, but it does not follow by any means that quality is costly to produce. Very high-grade "quality" products are often high priced, but lower grade and less expensive articles also possess their own quality standards.<br><br>In the factory, quality is a costly thing to neglect, yet it is the usual experience to find a disproportionate emphasis being placed upon quantity of output, in the effort to effect economies. Often this is not so much due to lack of proper intent as it is to the failure to realize what the quality approach means. To establish and maintain definite and sensible standards of quality requires care and thoroughness. These are the very things which remove obstacles to production and thus decrease costs - quite independently of whether the product is high grade or low grade, high priced or low priced.<br><br>In the following pages, presenting the results of an intensive study of quality in manufacturing, it has been the intention to show that the control of quality is the correct starting point for economy (as well as to obtain higher standards for their own sake), since if quality is under positive and continuous control, increase of output follows as a by-product advantage.