STUDENT EDITION

MANAGEMENT
PowerPoint Presentation by ACCOUNTING
Gail B. Wright
Professor Emeritus of Accounting 8th EDITION
Bryant University
BY
© Copyright 2007 Thomson South-Western, a part of The
Thomson Corporation. Thomson, the Star Logo, and
South-Western are trademarks used herein under license.
HANSEN & MOWEN

15 QUALITY COSTS AND PRODUCTIVITY

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 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Identify & describe the 4 types of quality
costs.
2. Prepare a quality cost report; differentiate
between acceptable quality level & total
quality control.
3. Tell why quality cost information is needed
& show how it is used.
4. Explain what productivity is; calculate the
impact of productivity changes on profits.
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 LO 1

WEIGHING COSTS & BENEFITS

Managers need to know what quality costs
are & how they change over time
Costs of quality
Studies suggest that cost of quality production
might be as much as 20% – 30% of sales
Benefits of quality
Competitive dimension

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 LO 1

DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY: 1
Performance: how consistently a product
functions
Aesthetics
Aesthetics : appearance of tangible products,
facilities, communication materials
Serviceability: ease of maintaining, repairing
product
Features of quality design: characteristics that
differentiate between similar products
Continued
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DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY: 2
Reliability: probability that product, service
will perform intended function for specified
length of time
Durability: length of time a product functions
Quality of
Quality of conformance
conformance : measure of how a
product meets its specifications
Fitness for use: suitability of product for
advertised functions
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 LO 1

DEFECTIVE PRODUCT:
Definition

Is one that does not conform to

specifications. Zero defects is
the goal.

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 LO 1

What are costs of quality?

Costs of quality exist because poor

quality does or may exist:
• Control activities to prevent,
detect poor quality.
• Failure activities are responses to
poor quality.
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 LO 1

CATEGORIES OF QUALITY
COSTS
1. Prevention costs: incurred to prevent poor quality
2. Appraisal
Appraisal costs : incurred to determine whether
products, services conform to requirements,
customer needs
3. Internal failure costs: incurred when non-
conformance is discovered & product, service re-
worked, scrapped, etc.
4. External failure costs: incurred when products fail
to conform after delivery and recalled
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 LO 1

CLASSIFYING QUALITY COSTS

Observable
Costs available in accounting records
Hidden
Significant
Not directly available in accounting records
Estimated
Multiplier method
Market research
Taguchi quality loss function
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FORMULA: Multiplier Method

Multiplier method estimates quality costs as
some multiple of measured failure costs.

Total external failure cost:

= k (Measured external failure costs)

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 LO 1

How does market research

estimate hidden quality
costs?

Market research uses customer

surveys & interviews of sales
staff to project future profit
losses.

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 LO 1

What assumption does the

Taguchi quality loss
function make?

Taguchi quality loss function

assumes that variations from
target value of quality
characteristic causes hidden
quality costs regardless of
specification limits.
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 LO 1

FORMULA: Taguchi Function

Taguchi quality loss function estimates hidden
costs of poor quality.

[Quality loss * Actual value of quality

characteristic] L(y)
= a proportional constant multiplier of
external cost failure structure * (difference
between actual and target value squared)
L(y) = k(y-T)2
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 LO 2

ACCEPTABLE QUALITY
LEVEL (AQL): Definition

Is the optimal balance

between control costs &
failure costs.

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 LO 2

Is there a problem with the

ACL (traditional) view of
quality?

AQL encouraged lower quality

levels by accepting production
of a given number of defective
units.

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 LO 2

ZERO DEFECTS MODEL:

Definition

Claims that it is cost

beneficial to reduce non-
conforming units to zero.

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 LO 2

Is there a problem with the

zero defects model?

Zero defects model understates

quality costs & the potential for
savings from efforts to improve
quality.

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 LO 2

REDUCING QUALITY COSTS

Take direct attack on failure costs to drive
them to zero
Invest in “right” prevention activities to bring
about improvement
Reduce appraisal costs according to results
achieved
Continuously evaluate, redirect prevention
efforts to gain further improvement
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 LO 2

What is the strategy for

reducing costs based on?

The strategy is based on the premise

that a) there is a root cause for each
failure, b) causes are preventable,
and c) prevention is always cheaper.

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 LO 2

ABM & OPTIMAL QUALITY

COSTS
ABM classifies costs as value-added &
non-value-added and recommends
non-value-added costs be eliminated.
 Value-added quality costs
 Prevention activities, when performed
efficiently
 Non-value-added quality costs
 Appraisal costs
 Failure costs (both internal & external)

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TQC COMPONENT GRAPH

Over time, quality

costs shift from non-
value-added to value-
added (prevention)
costs.

EXHIBIT 15-8 21
 LO 3

What are principal

objectives of reporting
quality costs?

Principal objectives are to

improve & facilitate a)
managerial planning, b) control,
and c) decision making.

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TOTAL PRODUCTIVE
EFFICIENCY
When concerned with productive efficiency,
2 conditions must be satisfied:
 Technical efficiency: For any mix of inputs
that will produce a given output, no more of
any 1 input is used than necessary to
produce the output
 Input trade-off efficiency: Given the
mixes that satisfy the first condition, the
least costly mix is chosen.
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PARTIAL MEASURES: Analysis

Conclusions that can be drawn about partial

measures:
 Existence of trade-offs mandates total
measure of productivity for assessing merits
of productivity decisions
 Because of possibility of trade-offs,
financial productivity must be measured

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TOTAL PRODUCTIVITY
MEASUREMENT: Definition

Is measuring productivity for

all inputs simultaneously.

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PROFIT-LINKED PRODUCTIVITY
MEASUREMENT: Definition

Is measuring the amount of

profit change attributable to
productivity change.

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PROFIT-LINKAGE RULE:
Definition

States that productivity change is

the difference between
[Cost of inputs without
productivity change – cost of
inputs actually used].

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FORMULA: Profit Recovery

Profit recovery is the change in revenue minus a
change in the cost of inputs .

Profit recovery
= Profit change – Profit linked productivity change
= ($1,510,000 – $450,000)
= $1,060,000

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CHAPTER 15

THE END

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