Introduction to COQ Training

Is a COQ Program essential? No, but it is important. Why? Let’s look at two well-known quotes:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” | Peter Drucker

“In God we trust, all others must bring data.” | W. Edwards Deming.

Drucker means that we cannot know if we are successful unless we have defined what success “looks like” and then measure and monitor our performance against our definition. Deming adds an important dimension: We need data, not hunches or opinions to properly understand how we are doing. Unless we can develop a reliable means to collect and quantify performance, we don’t really know how we are doing. Without data, we are just guessing.

So what can a COQ Program do for us? A COQ Program can:

• Let us know (approximately) how much it costs (as a % of sales) to prevent quality defects, detect them if they occur and recover from substandard quality issues when they do take place.
• Help us identify the processes, products or services that have the greatest impact on COQ.
• Effectively track and monitor COQ % over time so we can see if our efforts to reduce COQ are working.

This course will provide leaders, managers, supervisors and others who use, but are not involved in the day to day calculation and maintenance of Cost of Quality Reports with a working knowledge of the basic concepts and language of Cost of Quality.

This is an introductory course designed to introduce learners to the terminology and concepts of COQ.  For comprehensive COQ training, please see Cost of Quality.