Assessment of quality management system maturity

Abstract

Quality management in a manufacturing company is manifested by specific activities, which can be less or more efficient. The authors of this paper assume that level of efficiency is an indicator of the maturity [1] of a quality management system (QMS). The aim of this paper is to present a technique developed by the authors to assess the maturity of a quality management system. The technique is based on an original, generalized model of quality costs in which the QMS maturity is a variable and quality costs are an output quantity. This procedure provides a strategy to assess the maturity of processes and indicate areas and potential of improvement.