Planning and controlling of quality costs: an investigation on managerial practice

Abstract

The objective of this article is to investigate the companies' practices regarding planning and controlling of quality costs. The study discusses current procedures adopted by the corporations according to the edition of the NBR ISO 9004:2000, which, for the first time, showed a legal recommendation about treatment of quality cost in line with the procedures recommended by the academic literature. The empiric research was developed based on 53 medium and large companies certified by ISO criteria, all of them associated to the Fundação para o Prêmio Nacional da Qualidade (FPNQ - Foundation For the National Prize on Quality ), a Brazilian association created to promote and improve quality system benefits. Of these 53 organizations, 32 are domestic companies and 31are Brazilian subsidiaries of multinational enterprises. To reach the goal of this research a questionnaire was sent to quality department managers. The research concluded that the organizations have not payed enough attention to the planning and controlling of quality costs in the same level that they have devoted to formalize the operational process to get the ISO certificate. The results of the research indicate that the companies have used few and superficial procedures to classify and measure quality costs as well as budgeting and evaluating the return of investment on quality and related management information reports. It was also observed that the poorer practices are more noticed in Brazilian domestic companies.