Nothkwaliteit

Nothkwaliteit is a concept in quality discourse that refers to evaluating quality under emergency or severe constraint conditions. It captures the idea that what counts as acceptable quality may differ when resources are scarce, decisions must be made quickly, or safety risks are elevated.

The concept is applied in manufacturing, public administration, software development, and disaster response planning to examine how systems cope with shocks. It emphasizes resilience, reliability, and timely deliverability alongside traditional quality dimensions such as performance and conformance.

Measurement approaches combine standard quality indicators with crisis-adapted criteria: speed, robustness, redundancy, maintainability, and safety margins. Trade-offs are common, and nothkwaliteit may be used to support risk assessment, supplier selection, and contingency planning. It is often discussed in relation to existing frameworks like quality management and resilience engineering.

Critics contend that the focus on emergency conditions risks normal standards slipping or ethical concerns about lowering expectations. Proponents argue that explicit attention to constraints improves preparedness and reduces harm in real crises, provided that definitions are transparent and revisited after the event.

See also concepts such as resilience engineering, crisis management, and quality under constraint. Notable discussions appear in theoretical articles and applied case studies in supply chain disruption, emergency procurement, and critical infrastructure design.