Juergen Wittmann

Zero Defects - Dead or Alive? Juergen Wittmann

From the beginning "Zero Defects" has not focused on a clearly defined specific product failure rate, but was more a management tool for defect reduction. Today, in addition, quality sensitive branches predominantly consider a "defects per million" (dpm) quality level as Zero Defects, but already move on towards lower defect rates on the "defects per billion" (dpb) quality level. Based on the evaluation of the companies' supplier quality rating schemes, however, it becomes obvious that failure rates of incoming goods in the percentage range are still accepted in the industry. In addition, a modified cost model is proposed supporting defect levels in the dpm and sub dpm range.