Appropriate level of QA staff

What I have experienced in the last few years, was building the inspection process into the production operators job functions. You have to make sure the training, and the personnel are up to the task, for it to work well. Management and accountants (in some places) look at dedicated quality personnel as non-value added, or non-billable labor for their products. It's all about the bottom line, and labor cost is one of, or the most cost of doing business.

Rich Shippy said:

Management and accountants (in some places) look at dedicated quality personnel as non-value added, or non-billable labor for their products. It's all about the bottom line, and labor cost is one of, or the most cost of doing business.

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Not to detract from your overall comment, which is often true, but labor costs are not always the chief cost. Sometimes material costs are much higher than labor, particularly with highly complex products. Unfortunately, even in that case, management may feel that labor cost is the only thing they can control, so they still go after labor.