Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Business Plan Writer & Financial Projections
What Is Quality Control, and How Do You Check Quality as You Grow?
Twice the Volume Can Mean Six Times the Returns.
Business doubled, and so did the complaints. Then they more than doubled. You try checking everything yourself, and now orders are late as well as broken. Business consultant Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA, breaks down how to check quality at a bigger size without checking every single item.
Last Updated: 11/08/2026 · Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
The Definition
What Does Quality Control Mean as You Grow?
Short Answer
Quality control is the process of checking products or work against a standard and catching problems before they reach the customer. At a larger size, it means checking the riskiest items every time, sampling the ordinary ones, and counting every problem by its cause so the cause gets fixed, not just the item.
Quality control = check every risky item + sample the rest + count failures by cause
Doctor Owl, in Plain English
“You cannot check fourteen hundred parcels with eight arms. Count where they break, check every one there, and sample the rest.”
How This Guide Works
Need the answer fast? Read the Short Answer above and the numbered steps. Want the full picture? Follow Otto, an octopus with a parcel shop from Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest Business School Series, as his damaged parcels jump from one in a hundred to six. His story shows up in a few short gold notes along the way. The math sits in one section, clearly marked.
Is Quality Slipping as You Get Busier?
Find where it breaks with Dr. Paul, put your quality system into your business plan, or learn the method first.
Business Consulting
FeaturedFor owners weighing a lease, a loan, or a new location. Dr. Paul works the numbers with you before the money moves.
See consulting options →Business Plan Writing
A lender-ready expansion plan: the unit numbers, the funding request, and a payment the business can actually carry.
Start your plan →Business Plan Templates
Build it yourself with an industry Word plan and an Excel model that shows what the next location does to your cash.
Browse templates →Small Business Education
Free guides, videos, and the Fabled Forest Business School books. Learn the growth math before you sign anything.
Start learning →From Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest
Meet Otto: An Octopus Whose Parcels Keep Coming Back
Some lessons stick better as a story. Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest Business School Series teaches business through a forest full of small business owners. Doctor Owl, a dry-witted consultant who lives in the Lone Oak, helps them fix the same problems real owners face.
Today he spots a problem in the post office basket. Nine parcels have come back damaged, and six of them carry the label of Eight-Arm Errands, the parcel shop at the ferry landing run by Otto the Octopus. Business has nearly doubled. So have the crushed boxes and broken jars.
Why It Matters
What Makes Quality Drop When a Business Gets Busier?
At a small size, the owner catches most problems personally, often without thinking about it. As volume grows, the owner cannot see everything, and problems that were rare start to add up.
The usual reaction makes it worse: the owner tries to check everything personally. That creates a bottleneck, slows delivery, and still misses problems because a tired checker makes mistakes. Quality control at scale is about where you check, not how hard.
In the Fabled Forest
Winter: roughly 800 parcels a month and 8 returned broken, a 1 percent rate. May: 1,400 parcels and 84 broken, a 6 percent rate. Otto checked every parcel himself for two days, and the boat left with forty still on the dock.
Find the Cause
How Do You Find Where Quality Is Breaking?
- Count every failure. Returns, complaints, redos. One list, every one.
- Sort them by cause. Not by customer or by day, but by what actually went wrong.
- Rank the causes. Usually one or two causes account for most of the failures.
- Fix causes at the source. A better process or a better handoff beats an extra inspection. See quality control vs quality assurance.
In the Fabled Forest
Tobias, the old turtle who keeps Otto’s books, sorted May’s 84 returns by cause. Fifty-six were crushed, all from the top, on the ferry, where heavy crates were stacked on whatever was underneath. Eleven were jars and glass without padding. Three were wet.
Check Smarter
How Do You Check Quality Without Checking Everything?
Split the work into risky and ordinary. Risky items, the fragile, expensive, or complicated ones, get checked every time. Ordinary items get sampled: a fixed share, picked by count rather than by choice, so the sample is honest.
Then set a trigger. If too many samples fail, check everything in the next batch until the problem is found. This keeps the checking load small on good days and catches problems fast on bad ones.
In the Fabled Forest
Otto checked every fragile parcel every time, about 280 a month. Ordinary parcels were sampled, one in ten, counted off the bench. Two failures in a sample meant a full check of the next batch. The ferry crew also agreed to post loading rules in the hold so heavy crates went under fragile ones, never on top.
The Numbers
What Was Each Damaged Item Costing?
Here are Otto’s damage numbers before and after he checked by cause.
| Month | Parcels | Damaged | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | About 800 | 8 | 1 in 100 |
| May | 1,400 | 84 | 6 in 100 |
| First three weeks of June, same pace | 10 | About 1 in 100 |
Step 1: The cost per failure. 3 coins refunded + 1 coin to rewrap and resend = 4 coins every time a parcel comes back.
Step 2: May’s damage bill. 84 × 4 = 336 coins in one month, before counting lost customers.
Step 3: Your version. Failures per month × cost per failure. Then sort the failures by cause. Fixing the top cause usually removes most of the bill.
Illustrative numbers in forest coins, from the book. Use your own failure counts and costs.
Step by Step
How Do You Set Up Quality Control in a Growing Business?
Four steps to catch problems without becoming the bottleneck.
Count failures by cause.
For one month, record every return, complaint, or redo, and what caused it.
Fix the biggest cause at the source.
Change the process, handoff, or material that causes most of the failures.
Check every risky item.
Define what counts as risky, and check those every time before they leave.
Sample everything else, with a trigger.
Check a fixed share by count. If too many fail, check the whole next batch.
In the Fabled Forest
Doctor Owl’s scroll for Otto asked three things: the weak spot, the checking level at that spot, and the tally to keep.
Otto’s Full Story
Did Otto Keep His Promise to the Coast?
This page gives you the short version. The book gives you the whole story: the lighthouse stamp and the post office basket, eight arms checking fourteen hundred parcels, Tobias’s page of causes, the two crabs from two doors down, and the stacking card in the ferry’s hold.
Every chapter of Growth for Small Businesses works the same way. One owner, one problem, one real idea you can use on Monday, plus a one-page worksheet to do it.
A Business Consultant’s View
What Does Dr. Paul Measure When Quality Slips?
Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA · Business Consultant
When quality slips, Dr. Paul starts with a simple count: every failure for one month, sorted by cause, with what each one costs. Owners usually feel like problems are everywhere. The count almost always shows that one or two causes produce most of them, often at a handoff the owner never sees, like a delivery partner, a supplier, or a rushed final step. He fixes those first, then sets up checking that matches the risk: every time for the high-stakes items, a sample for the rest. Quality improves, the owner stops being the inspector, and the business can keep growing without the returns growing with it.
FAQ
Still Have Questions About Keeping Quality Up?
What is quality control in a small business?
How do I keep quality consistent as my business grows?
What is sampling in quality control?
Keep Going
Want to Go Deeper on Quality at a Bigger Size?
This is foundation 15 of 20. These pages build on it. New to a term on this page? Every one is in the growth glossary.
Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA, business consultant and author with 14+ years of experience and 1,000+ clients served. Weighing a growth move and want a second set of eyes? See business consulting and prices.
This page is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal, financial, employment, or other professional advice. Figures are illustrations. The Fabled Forest and its characters are fictional. For decisions about your own business, consult a qualified professional.