Cost of Quality (CoQ) Guidelines
 Cost should be filled as actual cost or as relative cost spent on every activity per annum.
 If Relative cost is selected
o Multiplier should be decided such that relative cost lies from 0 to 100.
o E.g.: If multiplier is 1000, relative cost for 1000 will be 1, 10000 will be 10, 100000 will be 100. If it
exceeds 100 multiplier needs to be modified.
 Refer below table to understand the activities covered under each category.
Prevention Costs
Costs includes, How much do I spent on
1
Cost of training (including internal and
external)
2
Cost incurred to plan audits and processes
(including documentation costs)
3
Cost spent on building testing related
components (E.g. test planning, automation
framework)
 Training Plans, Trainer Fees, Training Aids.
 Technical trainings and Non-Technical trainings.
Costs includes, How much do I spent on



Defining Audit process and procedure
Plans for managing defects, errors and corrections.
Preparing quality policies, practices and procedures to achieve
the best practice and complying with data.
 Documentation of all the process, procedures, analysis report
and data collection.
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,

Gathering details to identify the type of tests, test environments
and automation testing feasibility analysis.
Appraisal Costs
4
Cost spent to perform reviews and audits
(includes reviews, internal and external
audits)
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,


Conducting on internal and external audits.
Review Plans, Review efforts.
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,
5
Cost invested in testing tools (includes test
management, bug tracking and automation
tools)
6
Cost of internal testing (includes people,
environment costs)
 Testing tools.
 Test management tools
 Bug tracking tools
 Test automation tools
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,



Internal testing efforts.
People resources used for testing
Test Environments
Internal Failure Costs
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,
7
Cost of re-testing (includes re-testing efforts,
root cause analysis for bugs, people and
environment costs)
8
Cost of resource unavailability (e.g. Network
failure, test environment crash)
 Retesting activities
 Root cause analysis done for bugs
 People and Test environments used in re-testing
Cost includes, How much do I spent due to,


Local network down or failure
Test environment failure or crash
External Failure Costs
Cost includes, How much do I spent to,
9
Cost to fix customer complaints
10
Penalty cost paid to due to customer dissatisfaction
 Handle and Fix the customer complaints
 Additional support provided to customers
 Product replacement if any.
Cost includes, How much do I spent on,


As a penalty for the nonconformance of the requirements
Legal dealings made to fix the issues.