Most "bean counters" I have met can tell you that cutting costs usually results in lower quality and sales.
Whether bean counters say that or not, it's not true.
The Cost of Poor Quality includes warranty, customer service, ineffective meetings, excess inventory, scrap, rework, and many other costs. In most companies, it's staggering. I have inside information from one very large company that they estimated COPQ at 37% of revenue.
COPQ is an enormous target of opportunity.
As you reduce scrap, rework and such, quality goes up and costs go down. The amazing result is, if you do it right, low cost, high quality, and high customer satisfaction all happen together by driving down COPQ.
If management isn't constantly paying attention to quality, COPQ, and customer satisfaction, costs get out of hand and customers become unhappy. It's a pity, because so many companies ignore this.
The hope is that whoever takes over the company next will do a better job.
