How Much Is Poor Quality Costing You?

How Much Is Poor Quality Costing You?

The Hidden 15–40% Drain on Aerospace Operations

The Problem: Quality Failures Hide in Plain Sight

Most aerospace shops underestimate what poor quality really costs them.

It's not just rework or scrap. It's:

• Engineering hours rewriting drawings after production starts
• QA time spent chasing incomplete tolerances
• Delayed inspection reports due to ambiguity
• Audit flags from missing change history
• A growing mess of tribal knowledge that only some people know how to work around

And because all of it feels "normal" — no one questions how much of your operations are spent correcting preventable errors.

The American Society for Quality (ASQ) calls this the Cost of Poor Quality, and it's often far higher than most manufacturers believe.

What the Numbers Say: 15–40%

According to ASQ:

"Many organizations will have true quality-related costs as high as 15–20% of sales revenue, some going as high as 40% of total operations." Source: ASQ Quality Resources – Cost of Quality https://asq.org/quality-resources/cost-of-quality

For aerospace, the upper bound is more common than you think. Why?

Because regulated manufacturing doesn't just demand quality — it demands provable, documented quality.

That means a single mistake in a drawing — a missing tolerance, ambiguous note, or incorrect part number — can result in:

• Scrapped parts
• Redone inspections
• Change order delays
• Audits and findings

…and none of it generates revenue.

The Impact: What CoPQ Actually Costs

CoPQ affects more than your balance sheet — it hits your ability to compete.

For MROs:

• Lost hours on the shop floor fixing preventable issues
• Overtime spent preparing for audits
• Work stoppages waiting for revised documentation
• Parts failing incoming inspection due to drawing ambiguity

And often, your best engineers are the ones who get pulled to fix it.

For Investors:

Every 1% drop in CoPQ = direct EBITDA improvement.

• A $20M aerospace supplier with 20% CoPQ loses $4M per year
• Reducing that by even 25% adds $1M in profit
• No headcount needed — just fewer mistakes hitting production

It's one of the highest-leverage cost-saving moves you can make in aerospace — and yet one of the most under-addressed.

The Old Way vs. MLNavigator

Traditionally, QA and compliance checks happen after engineering drawings are released — often when parts are already on the floor.

MLNavigator's Solution

MLNavigator runs as an on-prem validation service alongside your PLM/QMS — no cloud, no new integrations.

When a drawing is uploaded, it automatically:

• Scans for missing tolerances, notes, or standard violations
• Flags ambiguities or inconsistent data
• Tags issues with the relevant AS9100 or FAA clause
• Logs all interactions and fixes for audit traceability
• No internet egress; processing stays on-site

For MROs, this means faster turnarounds and fewer audit risks. For investors, it's a clear operational moat — making QA smarter without adding cost.

Visual Snapshot: Where the Cost Hides

Sources

Final Word

If your shop runs on tribal knowledge and last-minute drawing reviews, you're probably bleeding margin — and you don't even see it.

The good news? You can fix it without hiring more QA, adding more meetings, or dragging engineering into another training cycle.

MLNavigator lets your team catch and correct quality risks at the point of entry, automatically. That's not just smart — it's necessary if you want to win the next contract, survive the next audit, or scale your ops without scaling your mistakes.