In today’s complex and uncertain business environments, customer satisfaction has become one of the most important strategic success factors for companies in order to gain competitive advantage. Delivering the right product quality to the customer can strongly influence customer’s satisfaction. Producing high-quality goods and services costs money, however poor quality and dissatisfied clients can result in even higher costs. Therefore, companies should work closely with customers, so that they can understand their needs, as well as increase their focus in the field of quality management, especially on quality cost management.
The concept of quality cost has been in practice since the early 1950s, where costs were classified in three main categories: prevention, appraisal and failure costs (known, as the P-A-F model). However, this classification has been strongly criticised by some authors. One main argument is that in practice, a clear distinction of the three categories is not possible. Thus, further models have been introduced, which suggest new ways of categorising quality-related costs. Research shows that the classification and reporting of quality costs can lead to improved quality control, increased cost and process transparency and can serve as an instrument for measuring the impact of quality management.
The aim of this thesis is to increase the transparency of quality costs at Liebherr Hausgeräte Lienz GmbH by proposing an approach to develop a new quality cost report. This thesis starts with the definition and explanation of the essential terms in quality management, as well as the definition of quality management systems. Furthermore, a deeper insight into quality cost types and the existing quality cost models is given. Based on the literature findings, the practical part of the thesis is carried out. The goal is to allocate quality costs to the product platforms. To do so, a gap analysis is carried out to identify gaps and trouble areas. Next, work packages are derived based on these gaps. These work packages and a new cost classification model are used as the foundation for the development of the new quality cost report. Lastly, the findings from the project are discussed and points for further analysis are suggested.