Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) in Textile Spinning: A Quantitative Framework for Financial Loss Quantification, Root Cause Analysis, and Strategic Mitigation

The Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) represents one of the most consequential yet under-measured financial burdens in textile spinning operations. While quality-related expenditures are routinely acknowledged in post-production reporting, their systemic quantification — across the Prevention–Appraisal–Failure (PAF) framework — remains inadequately integrated into the financial architecture of spinning mills, particularly in developing manufacturing economies. This article presents a rigorous, application-specific analytical framework for identifying, categorising, quantifying, and strategically mitigating COPQ across the full textile spinning value chain, from raw material intake through ring frame spinning, winding, and customer delivery. Grounded in the classical PAF cost-of-quality model as defined by ASQ, ISO, and the foundational work of Juran, Feigenbaum, and Crosby, the paper extends these principles to yarn manufacturing parameters including thick and thin places, neps, count CV%, unevenness (U%), hairiness, and end-breakage rates. A suite of mathematical models is developed to compute both internal and external failure costs, return on investment for prevention activities, and the optimal quality expenditure equilibrium. Seven original figures — including Pareto charts of spinning defects, COPQ cost escalation curves across the supply chain, sigma-level cost relationships, industry benchmark comparisons, and a DMAIC application roadmap — are presented to provide operational insight. Case references drawn from global manufacturing, healthcare, software, and financial services sectors are contextualised to derive transferable lessons for spinning mill management. The article concludes with a structured analysis of limitations inherent to COPQ modelling in textile environments and proposes a pathway for spinners to deploy these frameworks as a transformative tool for EBITDA enhancement, customer retention, and long-term competitive sustainability.