This article presents a survey of published literature about various quality costing approaches and reports of their success in order to provide a better understanding of cost of quality (CoQ) methods. Even though the literature review shows an interest by the academic community, a CoQ approach is not utilized in most quality management programs. Nevertheless, evidence is presented which shows that companies that do adopt a CoQ concept are successful in reducing quality costs and improving quality for their customers. The survey shows that the method most commonly implemented is the classical prevention-appraisal-failure (P-A-F) model; however, other quality cost models are used with success as well. The selected CoQ model must suit the situation, the environment, the purpose and the needs of the company in order to have a chance to become a successful systematic tool in a quality management program.
This paper explores the linkages between key features of the new product development (NPD) process and NPD performance and suggests ways of designing the process to improve performance. Using a stochastic computer model, we examine, under varying uncertainty conditions, how the key features of overlapping and functional interaction affect the performance measures of development time and effort (total person-days for a project). Findings indicate that, first and foremost, whether or not overlapping occurs, increasing functional interaction eventually leads to a trade-off between development time and effort. Second, an Üearly-start-in-the-darkÝ approach of increasing overlapping with no functional interaction is inferior even to an Üover-the-wallÝ approach. Third, increasing overlapping when some functional interaction exists is beneficial in low uncertainty and harmful in high uncertainty. Fourth, concurrent engineering (CE) is appropriate under low uncertainty, while a type of sequential engineering (SE), different than the Üover-the-wallÝ approach, should be used under high uncertainty, and last, dedicated teams are suitable under high, and not low, uncertainty. We developed the model with the aid of a company and validated it against a published account of five case studies.new product development, concurrent engineering, sequential engineering, stochastic simulation, overlapping, cross-functional teams
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