Using Cost of Quality Approaches to Improve Commercial Space Transportation Safety

摘要

Safety must be tied to the profitability of a launch vehicle company in order for safety to become an essential part of that company's culture. Corporations have begun to realize the importance of safety to productivity and profitability, but few uniform methods exist for analyzing the economics of safety. Methods do exist for analyzing the cost of poor quality, and a commercial launch vehicle operator could adapt these methods to help identify the cost benefits of safety improvements. This paper describes a safety cost analysis model based on quality cost management approaches. The paper also provides examples showing how cost analysis models might be used to help prioritize safety improvement efforts while improving the corporate bottom line.