What Is the Cost of Quality?

A formal quality department and all of it's associated cost are actually free by means of return on investment through "cost avoidance" if :

1. All expenditures are adequately justified.
2. The department is properly staffed, supervised and managed.

..............Cost can easily exceed benefit.

.................................Good luck on the properly managed bit.

The kerosene lantern, also popularly referred to as a "hurricane lantern" was commonly used from the late 1800s through the middle of the 20th century. A kerosene lantern is a rugged version of a kerosene lamp and is designed for portability. The metal chimney and side tubes, which securely supports the glass globe to prevent breakage, typically contains a ducting system to stabilize and enhance the draft of air reaching the flame resulting in a stable, brighter, wind resistant flame. Lanterns with enhanced drafting are referred to as either "hot blast" or "cold blast" tubular lanterns, depending on their design, with the latter being more common. Large kerosene lanterns produce 12-14 candela of light and approximately 1500 Btu of heat.

Common residential/agricultural applications for kerosene lamps were lighting unelectrified rural homes, barns and the path for nighttime visits to outhouse. Horse drawn carriages, railroad cars, ships, and early automobiles used kerosene lanterns for nighttime illumination, but the brighter carbide lamp was preferred for this use. The kerosene lantern was also heavily used as a method of signaling and navigational marking in railroad, nautical, firefighting, and public works applications. Lanterns used for signaling often had interchangeable globes of different colours. For example, lanterns with red and green globes were placed on the sides of ships to mark port and starboard, while lanterns with clear globes were used to indicate the ship was at anchor. Lanterns designed for marking purposes sometimes had extra large fuel tanks to permit 48 hours of continuous burning to permit workers to leave it unattended over the weekend.

Widespread rural electrification, improvements in battery operated lamps such as flashlights, and the affordability of portable gas-powered mantle lamps, spelled the decline of the kerosene lantern. Today, kerosene lanterns are still manufactured in China, some using the original tooling from the early 1900s. In the United States, antique lanterns are a collector's item, especially lanterns manufactured for carriages, fire trucks and railroads. Most often they are used for decoration and are never lit. The few remaining lanterns actually lit are used as source of emergency light during power outages, or as mood lighting. The Amish, some campers, and some individuals living "off-the-grid" still use kerosene lanterns on a regular basis.

If you want to save money, just make sure you get what you need and not what you want. I was looking for a handheld spectrum analyzer and wantd an 18GHz. Called around and finally talked to a guy at testmart.com, long story short I only needed the 6GHz handheld. Cost me a little bit of time but probably saved me about $8k.

Cost of testing is "cost of poor quality". Because no economic value is added in testing. But at the same time, we need to make sure that what we produce also meets the end user/customer stated/intended needs.

Therefore one to optimise the testing cost.