A Proposed Model for Measuring Cost of Quality to Promote Continuous Improvements in Manufacturing Sector in Palestine رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

This study aims to propose and build a model to measure the cost of quality in the manufacturing firms in Palestine to promote continuous improvement. It evaluated to adopt the four types of cost of quality: the prevention, the appraisal, the internal failure, and the external failure costs. The quantitative and qualitative strategy was employed to achieve the research's objective. The quantitative method was followed to have quantitative data by designing and distributing a questionnaire to a randomly selected sample of employees working in the Palestinian manufacturing industries. That is to examine their interest in implementing a cost of quality in their departments. In addition, the financial reports for the years (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) of the targeted industries were also analyzed. On the other hand, unstructured interviews were conducted to collect qualitative data. The study used the descriptive statistical analysis method to describe and analyze the study variables using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results showed a statistically significant correlation between the cost of quality and its four components, as well as continuous improvement. When interpreting the dependent variable using all the independent variables, it showed that most of the effect on the variance in continuous improvements is explained positively by the costs of prevention, internal failure, and external failure. When the dependent variable was interpreted using only one independent variable, the findings indicated that the costs of prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure explain the variation in continuous improvements. The findings also revealed that employees were very v interested in measuring the cost of quality to promote continuous improvement. However, a review of the financial reports found that systematic cost-of-quality measurement is still immature. The elements of quality costs are calculated without relying on quality cost reports. Due to a lack of administrative support, a lack of information and data on quality costs, as well as difficulties in acquiring these costs, greater efforts must be developed and institutionalized. To this purpose, the well-known PAF model on quality costs, which is directly linked to continuous improvement initiatives, is strongly recommended for implementation in the Palestinian manufacturing sector.