Reducing the Cost of Quality

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Houston’s chapter of the prestigious American Society for Quality (ASQ) has invited me to speak at their November monthly meeting. My topic will be “Communications and the Cost of Quality” (see http://www.asqhouston.org/Meetings.htm).

The Cost of Quality is a big deal to business. Oil industry giant Schlumberger spends about a million dollars a day on its quality, health, safety, and environment (QHSE) program.

An effective quality program reduces such direct costs, and increases customer loyalty and retention. But it can only succeed if every employee is fully committed to its success from day one. Corporate policies are one way to make this happen. For example, Schlumberger strictly enforces personal accountability for quality.

Smaller companies need to find an economical, flexible approach to lowering the cost of quality. In next week’s presentation I’ll suggest building a strong community of stakeholders around a core message that supports a new corporate culture of quality.

Individuals and companies are already using my four-step process to market themselves to employers and prospects. Corporations can also use it to “market” quality to employees, in a benevolent process designed to engage and empower them and make quality improvement an important part of every task.