QUALITY COSTS AS THE FACTOR OF COMPETITIVENESS INCREASE AT DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MARKET

The paper discusses the importance of quality costs as the factor of competitiveness at the world market. For this purpose it is given definition of quality costs, their structure and characteristics, and the control system-supervision, as the subsystem of quality system determined by international standards ISO 9000ff. There are also analyzed experiences in monitoring the quality costs in developed countries and countries in transition-transitional countries, with a special retrospect to the situation in the Republic of Croatia. Finally are given concluding considerations with proposals for improvement of systematic monitoring of quality costs aimed to competitiveness increase.