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Construction industry faces challenges in making objective decisions due to monetary value attached to quality. Among various quality management techniques available, cost of quality (COQ) is one such method used to address the concern. However, the absence of measurable COQ factors to monitor quality costs hampers the implementation of COQ framework in the construction industry. Therefore, this study aims to identify COQ factors focused on visible factors (VF) and hidden factors (HF) and the current requirements to achieve it.

This study is based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses protocol guidelines. The present study identified 57 articles published between 1992 and 2023 in peer-reviewed journals.

The findings reveal 22 factors, which are grouped into four categories based on COQ. Through systematic review, the authors observed limited methodological and theoretical diversity. In fact, there are no quantitative frameworks to calculate COQ. The study, therefore, developed a framework comprising four major routes/paths of COQ factors within the framework.

The COQ routes developed through this study will enable the practitioners to meticulously categorise VF and HF, facilitating quantifying of quality throughout the lifecycle of project, which is currently absent from the existing quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) approach. In addition, these COQ routes stand as essential construction strategies, significantly enhancing outcomes related to time, cost, quality, sustainability and fostering closer relationships within project frameworks.

The current study contributes significantly to the existing body of knowledge by developing various COQ routes and proposing future research directions to address gaps in the literature.

This study aims at determining the influence of the competitive strategy types and organizational structure dimensions on Cost of Quality (CoQ) in Food and Beverage (F&B) small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A survey questionnaire was sent to F&B companies in Greece and 307 responded positively and fully completed the questionnaire. The research model developed (consisting of the competitive strategy types, the organizational structure dimensions and CoQ) was tested using the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.

The findings indicated that cost leadership, centralization and formalization influence the CoQ positively and significantly. By contrast, differentiation does not influence CoQ.

The small sample of the responding companies operating in one country, the different F&B sub-sectors, the subjective perceptions of only one representative per company and the cross-sectional nature of the study are the main limitations of the present study.

This paper provides academicians and practitioners with a better understanding of the factors that influence the quality-cost level.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that examines the effect of competitive strategy and organizational structure on CoQ.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the cost of quality (CoQ) of food manufacturing companies. The study aims at empirically validating the conceptual structure of the core dimensions of CoQ (prevention, appraisal, internal and external failure cost) and determining their level and relationships. Determining the reasons for not measuring the CoQ as well as the barriers-difficulties and benefits of the CoQ measurement is also an aim of the present study.

Greek food manufacturing companies were approached through a structured questionnaire and 91 participated in the study. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis are applied for data analysis.

The structure of the core dimensions of CoQ is empirically validated, while all of them range within medium levels and are inter-related. The reasons for companies not measuring the CoQ as well as the barriers-difficulties of companies measuring the CoQ are not significant. On the contrary, significant benefits are derived from the CoQ measurement.

The small sample of the food manufacturing companies operating in one country and the subjective business evidence collected are the main limitations of the present study.

Food companies can be motivated to establish a robust CoQ measurement system, which would reflect the level of the CoQ dimensions. According to the results of the CoQ measurement, a food company can make decisions to increase the prevention and appraisal costs and decrease the internal- and external-failure costs in order to be more competitive in the market.

The paper provides deeper insights into the level and inter-relations of empirically validated CoQ dimensions. Very few studies on the CoQ in food manufacturing companies have been carried out in Greece and the present study makes the picture of the CoQ status in this sector more clear.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated cost of quality ‐ activity‐based costing (COQ‐ABC) framework for measuring quality costs under ABC. The main deficiencies of most COQ systems are: (1) no consensus method to allocate overhead costs to COQ elements, (2) the failure to trace quality costs to their sources, and (3) the lack of information about how indirect workers spend their time on various activities. These deficiencies can be easily overcome under ABC together with work sampling. The cost and nonfinancial information achieved from the integrated COQ‐ABC system can be used to identify the magnitude of the quality improvement opportunities, to identify where the quality improvement opportunities exist, and to continuously plan the quality improvement programs and control quality costs. The ultimate goal of the integrated COQ‐ABC system will be to continuously improve processes/activities/quality so that no defects at all are produced and quality cost measurement ultimately becomes unnecessary.

The objective of this paper is to present results of the study of the quality costing practices at four large successful multinational companies.

The method of benchmarking was used for the purpose of this study. Company representatives, who were invited for a benchmarking session, described the quality management programs running at their companies. Direct observation and archival records data collection were also used to extract more precise information for the following analysis and discussion.

The findings of the study show that all four companies use systematic quality initiatives; however, a formal cost of quality (CoQ) methodology was only employed at one of them. This is in agreement with the literature findings arguing that a CoQ approach is not utilized in most quality management programs.

This paper discusses and compares the quality programs of four companies and explains the benefits of the eventual adoption of a CoQ approach in each case. The analysis provides a new insight into company practice, useful both for academic research and industry.

Though the components and concepts of cost of quality (COQ) are well understood in the domain of manufacturing, only limited data are available from the construction industry for various reasons. The present study seeks to establish a relationship between project defect score (pds), representing the quality of construction in the project, and the COQ in the building construction industry. The study also seeks to estimate the contributions of the various components to the overall COQ in the construction industry, along with their distribution and interrelationships among themselves.

A framework for estimating COQ was developed, and the data regarding prevention, appraisal and failure cost were collected from 122 projects. Various mathematical and statistical tools like Pearson's correlation, multiple linear regression (MLR) and curve fitting have been used for data analysis.

The prevention–appraisal–failure (PAF) model was found to be appropriate to estimate COQ, and the prevention, appraisal, conformance cost (CC) and failure cost were found to vary between 0.19 and 8%, 0.05 and 5%, 0.3 and 10% and 0.01 and 5%, respectively, whereas the overall COQ varied from 3.5 to 10.01% of the project cost. The correlations between various components of COQ were found to be significant. MLR suggested that appraisal cost is more impactful in reducing failure cost than prevention cost. Using curve fitting, the cubic model appropriately represented all interrelationships. The optimal overall COQ was found to be 3.86%, and the reasons for low COQ have been explored.

The study evaluates the applicability of available models for COQ calculations for the construction industry and presents a framework to estimate its components. The study also explores the interrelationship between the various components of COQ and presents a generalized relationship between COQ and the pds.

This COQ project was originated with the objective of investigating measures of the cost of quality in engineering departments. The goal was to identify existing measures of the cost of quality in engineering operations and to recommend measures for possible use for the engineering unit of the client organization. To this end, information was obtained from the literature and telephone interviews with quality practitioners from major US corporations. Identifies a number of engineering measures of the cost of quality. More important, however, was the discovery that specific measures used to ascertain COQ were only part of what was needed. Also very important are the processes used to identify these measures and the requirement that engineering units tailor‐make a COQ programme. Describes the findings from a few of the interviews conducted as part of this project.

Today substantial investments are made to improve the bottom line and cost of quality (CoQ) is a tool that identifies weaker areas where these investments should be directed. In literature, the authors find various CoQ models and their applications but it is deficient in providing a standard format of a “Quality Cost Procedure” for a CoQ program’s company-wide deployment. A procedure was thus developed and its effectiveness was evaluated implementation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

CoQ program was implemented in the production department of a wood products’ manufacturer using the action research approach. Prevention, Appraisal and Failure Cost model was employed. Data collection was challenging, however, stakeholders were interviewed, data were acquired from Management Information System and various reports were reviewed for cost elements.

Total CoQ as a percentage of sales was found to be 11, while as a percentage of material cost was 15 percent. It was found through the implementation that development of a quality cost procedure is highly iterative in nature and a standard format is proposed in the Appendix. This procedure worked satisfactorily and the company is confident in moving to the next phase of company-wide deployment of CoQ Program.

A robust “Quality Cost Procedure” is developed, which not only helped the company but will serve CoQ implementers in their operational as well as tactical levels of management. CoQ implementation prior development of procedure brought conviction and accredited it. Practitioners can mold this procedure as per need, which will further enhance the body of knowledge on CoQ.

Material procurement constitutes a large share of the overall cost of construction projects. Understanding the factors influencing the cost of quality (COQ) in the procurement process could help identify opportunities for lowering quality cost without compromising quality. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, a COQ model for the construction material procurement process is developed using the traditional prevention–appraisal–failure (PAF) approach. Using data from a $4bn aluminum smelter construction project, the authors conducted a simulation of the COQ model to evaluate various quality assurance policies.

This paper confirms that raising the prevention cost leads to a drop in failure cost as well as COQ for the project studied. While the authors are unable to provide blanket recommendations as the results are derived from a single project case study, it does suggest that construction material procurement processes would benefit from a higher prevention expenditure. And for certain cases where the authors observe a deviation from the traditional Juran’s model of COQ – the high appraisal cost in the procurement process – reduction of appraisal expenditure may in fact be more beneficial than its increase.

The research results suggest that appraisal expenditure should be tailored to each purchase order in order to maximize the total benefits. Additionally, this paper presents the first COQ model developed for the construction material procurement process. Another unique feature of the model is its inclusion of supplier-side costs, which are excluded in the conventional COQ analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the cost of quality (COQ) expenditure allocations on a capacitated supply chain (SC) network.

This paper proposes a non-linear optimization model which integrates the opportunity cost (OC) (i.e. customer satisfaction cost), into the COQ with consideration of the QL in the supply chain network design decisions. In addition, it examines the effect of considering an investment at each SC echelon to ensure the best overall QL. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the behavior of the model.

The results show how the QL, COQ and facility location decisions change when incorporating the OC, investments and transportation costs into the SC model.

The novelty of this paper is that it considers the effect of OC, investment at each echelon and transportation costs on SC design by minimizing the overall spending on the COQ. These issues have not been explored, and for that reason, this paper contributes to the understanding of the critical factors that optimizes the SC COQ.