What is Cost of Poor Quality COPQ

Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) is the total labor, materials, and overhead costs attributed to imperfections in the processes that deliver products or services that don't meet specifications or expectations. These costs would include inspection, rework, duplicate work, scrapping rejects, replacements and refunds, complaints, loss of customers, and damage to reputation.

These are costs that would disappear if there were no quality problems. An important goal of Six Sigma management is to reduce or even eliminate the COPQ, which for traditionally managed organizations has been estimated at between 20% and 40% of budget.