Cost of Quality
The total cost of conformance (prevention and appraisal) and nonconformance (failures) related to quality.
Cost of Quality (COQ) sorts all quality-related spending into the cost of conformance — prevention (training, documentation, audits) plus appraisal (testing, inspections) — and the cost of nonconformance — internal failures (rework, scrap found before delivery) plus external failures (warranty, liability, lost business after delivery). Conformance costs are proactive investments; failure costs are reactive losses. PMBOK favors shifting spend toward prevention because defects caught late, especially after the customer has the product, cost far more. On the exam, classify carefully: rework is always an internal failure cost, not a prevention activity.
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