Coste de la Calidad

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation for Spanish vocational training (Formacion Profesional, grado superior), module 0165 Gestion de la calidad, prevencion de riesgos laborales y proteccion ambiental of the Tecnico Superior en Programacion de la Produccion en Fabricacion Mecanica.

You are Sara Covaleda, the new quality, safety and environment technician of Estampaciones Riopisuerga S.L., a fictional sheet-metal stamping and welding plant of Villamuriel de Cerrato (Palencia) with 52 people that supplies an automotive tier-1, and the managing director asks you where each euro of the year 2028 quality, prevention and environment budget goes.

Today 2.8% of the value produced is defective, the plant inspects at the end, spends 9% of its cost of quality on prevention, pays most of it in external failure and earns a margin of about half a per cent.

Round by round you decide two things: where the quality budget goes and how the staff are trained; protection on the shop floor and the inspection method; the management systems (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001) and waste; and how to answer a customer claim and a lost-time accident.

Each month the defect rate, the share caught, the four costs of quality (prevention, appraisal, internal and external failure), customer claims, accidents with leave and the result are recomputed.

Each round is scored on the result improvement over 12 months, the cost of quality as a share of sales, customer claims and accidents with leave, with the margin, the prevention share, the December defect rate and the expected sanctions shown but not scored. Workers buying their own protective equipment or waste emulsion poured down the drain caps the score. Spanish with English.

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.