Quality assurance of wood quality products

Quality costs have always presented a major item in overall expenses of a firm. This paper describes, in view of cost management, the research on quality assurance, conducted in several Croatian firms that manufacture wood items. The first part of the paper is an analysis of defect proportion in several firms dealing with solid wood processing. The data were obtained by using cross control cards and were analyzed by means of priority diagrams. After that a model of cost distribution of processing and material waste is presented through work phases. The phase in which there appeared the highest amount of waste material was analyzed step by step. Likewise, there is a quality cost report for several plant sections within a firm, classified by costs appearing in a particular business system. The costs of complaints and internal shortages in two different sections within one firm were analyzed, as they formed the highest cost item in the overall expenses for the particulur section. Finally, the complaints as to their causes in another firm over one year were analyzed. The priority diagram (Pareto) was used in all analyses.