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Question: An international bottle manufacturer produces glass


An international bottle manufacturer produces glass containers for customers that include condiment producers, breweries, and wineries. The growing demand for plastic containers, and a history of higher production costs due to high scrap and return rates drove the business to focus its improvement efforts on cost and customer performance. However, the unique characteristics of the bottle manufacturing process and the way in which the company measured and motivated its workforce’s performance made these improvements difficult to accomplish. Bottle plants are traditionally organized around two primary functions: forming and selecting. Forming is where raw materials are melted in furnaces and molten glass is cut and formed by fast-moving, noisy, and dangerous machines that turn out thousands of bottles each minute. The workforce is primarily older males. In the selecting department, the work is relatively quiet and clean. The majority of workers are female, and the work is focused on spotting and removing bottles that fail to meet height, weight, dimension, centricity, and thickness specifications. The principal performance measure in the forming department is the pack-to-melt ratio, calculated by dividing the total weight of bottles shipped by the total weight of the raw materials used. Individual and team performance goals are typically tied to this measure. The focus is on throughput and getting the highest percentage of produced bottles packed and shipped to customers. In the selecting department, customer sat is faction is the key measure of work performance, and compensation is based on how much product is accepted by the customer. As you can imagine, relations between the two departments were quite strained. To achieve its strategic goals of lower cost and improved customer performance, what could this company do to align the goals of the forming and selecting departments?


> Explain the Deming chain reaction.

> Explain the difference between common and special causes of variation.

> What are the operational problems created by excessive variation?

> What is statistical thinking? Why is it important to managers and workers at all levels of an organization?

> In a typical Baldrige assessment, examiners identify strengths and opportunities for improvement based on an applicant’s response to the Baldrige Criteria questions. Read the response to the Criteria questions in Category 5, Workforce, in the Arroyo Fres

> State two or three practices associated with each principle of quality management.

> List and briefly explain the seven principles of quality management.

> Explain the differences among quality principles, practices, and techniques.

> Summarize the key contributions of Feigen Baum and Ishikawa to modern quality thinking.

> What are Crosby’s Absolutes of Quality Management and Basic Elements of Improvement? How are they similar to or different from Deming’s 14 Points?

> How is Juran’s philosophy similar to or different from Deming’s?

> How does Deming’s definition of quality—“A product or a service possesses quality if it helps somebody and enjoys a good and sustainable market”—compare with the definitions discussed in Chapter 1?

> Why are all quality management systems not effective? What can be done to make them effective?

> What are the principal benefits of ISO 9000?

> Briefly summarize the rationale behind ISO 9000. What are the objectives of the standards?

> In a typical Baldrige assessment, examiners identify strengths and opportunities for improvement based on an applicant’s response to the Baldrige Criteria questions. Read the response to the Criteria questions in Category 3, Customers, in the Arroyo Fres

> Deere & Company (http://www.deere.com) (also known as John Deere, after its founder) is a world-leading manufacturer, distributor, and financier of equipment for agriculture, construction, forestry, and commercial and consumer applications (lawn and grou

> What is a quality management system (QMS)? Describe the features that a good QMS should have.

> What are the lessons of the red bead and funnel experiments? Can you cite any examples in your experience where someone acted counter to these lessons?

> Explain the two fundamental mistakes that managers make when attempting to improve a process. Can you cite any examples in your personal experience in which such mistakes were made?

> Why is it important to personalize quality principles?

> What evidence exists to counter the claim that “Quality does not pay”?

> Explain the role of both design and conformance quality in improving a firm’s profitability.

> What did Philip Crosby mean by “Quality is free”?

> How does quality support the achievement of competitive advantage?

> How can business support activities help to sustain quality in an organization? Give examples of some key business support activities and their role in quality

> Explain the roles of people and information technology in providing quality service. How does The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC use employees and information technology for quality service?

> The Baldrige Materials folder on the Student Companion Site contains a document called “Baldrige Excellence Builder,” which is an abbreviated version of the Baldrige Criteria. It also contains a case study of a fictitious organization, Arroyo Fresco. Thi

> Discuss the differences between manufacturing and service organizations. What are the implications of these differences for quality management?

> Why is service quality especially important in today’s business environment?

> Explain the role of the quality function in a typical company.

> Explain how each major function of a manufacturing system contributes to total quality.

> Define the following terms: a. quality assurance b. total quality c. performance excellence d. competitive advantage

> Briefly summarize the history of quality before and since the industrial revolution. What caused the most significant changes?

> Explain why a single quality definition is not sufficient.

> Examine the annual reports of one company over a period of years. Summarize how quality is discussed or implied in the company’s statements and philosophy. Are any changes in the perspectives of quality evident over time?

> Choose an organization of interest, conduct appropriate research, and write a case similar to the Xerox Quality in Practice in this chapter, documenting their quality journey and practices.

> Develop a portfolio of advertisements from newspapers and magazines and illustrate how quality is used in promoting these products. How do the ads imply the different definitions of quality?

> Consolidated Metal Works (CMW) was founded in the mid-1940s in a 3,000-square-foot building with nine people as a small family business to produce custom machined parts. In the 1960s, as business grew, the company expanded its facilities and its capabili

> Does your state have a quality award program? If so, obtain some current information about the program and report on it. If not, try to find a neighboring state with an award program and report on it.

> Obtain the current Baldrige Excellence Frame work document for business and nonprofit organizations. For each numbered set of questions in Categories 1–6 of the Baldrige Criteria, determine whether each of the core values and concepts are reflected (a) s

> Find the application summary for a recent Baldrige recipient on the Baldrige website, and identify at least three “role-model” practices among the first six categories. Justify why you consider them “role model”

> Visit the Baldrige Program website (http://www .nist.gov/baldrige) and write a report on the information that can be found there.

> Try to identify and contrast the core competencies of two different organizations within the same industry, such as Dell and Apple, Toyota and General Motors, or Sears and Walmart, for example. Does your research suggest that these competencies are refle

> Compare the organizational structures of several manufacturing or service firms. What differences are reflected in their quality approaches and results?

> In your role as a student, develop your own statements of mission, vision, and guiding principles. How would you create a strategy to achieve your mission and vision?

> Research the strategic planning practices of recent Baldrige Award winners. Discuss different approaches that these firms use and why they seem appropriate for their organizations. How do they reflect the leading practices described in this chapter?

> Does your university or college have a mission and strategy? How might policy deployment be used in a university setting? Discuss with a senior executive administrator at your college or university (such as the VP of administration or the VP of academic

> Find several examples of mission and vision statements for Fortune 500 companies. Critique these statements with respect to their usefulness, relevance to the organization, and ability to inspire and motivate employees.

> Interview managers at some local organizations to determine whether they have well-defined missions, visions, and guiding principles. If they do, how are these translated into strategy? If not, what steps should they take?

> Use the Baldrige Organizational Profile questions to prepare an organizational profile for your college or a local organization that would be willing to provide you with the information. Use the format of the Arroyo Fresco case study in the Baldrige Mate

> Work with teachers at a local high school or grade school to identify some students who are having difficulties in school. Apply quality tools to help find the source of the problems and create an improvement plan.

> Search the Internet for websites that contain descriptions and examples of quality improvement methodologies. How do they compare with the ones described in this chapter?

> In small teams, develop cause-and-effect diagrams for the following problems: a. Poor exam grade b. No job offers c. Late for work or school

> Develop a flowchart of the process you use to study for an exam. How might you improve this process?

> Find a local company that is using Six Sigma or lean principles. Write a case study of their experiences, focusing on the challenges they faced during their implementation efforts.

> Identify an important problem around your school or in some related function, such as a student organization, and apply the DMAIC process to develop an improved solution. Use whatever process improvement tools are appropriate.

> Three popular websites for Six Sigma are http:// www.ge.com/sixsigma, http://www.isixsigma.com, and http://asq.org/sixsigma. Explore these sites and consider the following questions. a. How does GE use Six Sigma to enhance customer perception of its pro

> Investigate design-for-environment practices in some of your local industries. Describe company policies and the methods and techniques that they use to address environmental concerns in product design.

> Senior managers at The Morgan Company had developed a new and inspiring mission statement—one that set a new direction for the company with ambitious strategic goals. Management continually emphasized the new strategy and asked employees what they needed

> Prepare a full DFMEA for a casual dining restaurant. Consider failure modes that might occur both in food preparation and in service. Clearly explain and justify your choices for the severity, likelihood, and detection ratings.

> Fill in the following relationship matrix of a House of Quality for a screwdriver. By sampling your classmates, develop priorities for the customer attributes and use these and the relationships to identify key technical requirements to deploy.

> Most children (and many adults) like to assemble and fly balsa-wood gliders. From your own experiences or from interviews with other students, define a set of customer requirements for a good glider. (Even better, buy one and test it to determine these r

> Suppose that you were developing a small pizza restaurant with a dining area and local delivery. Develop a list of customer requirements and technical requirements and try to complete a House of Quality. What service standards might such an operation hav

> Using whatever “market research” techniques are appropriate, define a set of customer attributes for a. Purchasing books at your college bookstore b. A college registration process c. A hotel room used for business d. A hotel room used for family lei

> The web site http://www.paperhelicopterexperiment.com/ describes how to build a paper helicopter to conduct a designed experiment. Choose only 3 factors from the list provided, and build helicopters to identify the best design that keeps the helicopter a

> Devise an experiment similar to the battery performance test case (see the Battery Experiment case that follows) to test different levels of some factor and conduct a statistical analysis of the results. Write up your experiment and results in a report a

> Find some examples of supplier certification processes used by major companies and summarize your findings, focusing on the criteria used and how the processes are implemented.

> Interview a plant manager or quality professional at one or more local companies to see whether they use any poke-yoke approaches to mistake-proof their operations.

> Identify several sources of errors as a student or in your personal life. Develop some poka-yokes that might prevent them.

> Fred Read, the owner of the Freadilunch (pronounced Freddylunch) Restaurant, a suburban, quick service restaurant, was concerned about the loss of several regular customers. He measured the number of empty lunch tables from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. over a fo

> Think of a casual dining restaurant that you frequent. The process of fulfilling customer’s needs and creating a satisfying dining experience begins when the customer walks through the door and ends when the customer leaves. Using process mapping, poka-y

> Barker is a small custom producer of equipment used in various process industries such as chemicals and beverages. Each piece of equipment is customer designed from customer specifications. The process generally consists of five steps: a. Customer quote

> Design an instrument for evaluating the “process focus” of an organization. For example, what characteristics would you look for in firms that have a strong process orientation?

> Design a process for the following activities: a. Preparing for an exam b. Writing a term paper c. Planning a vacation d. Making breakfast for your family e. Washing your car Discuss ways in which both quality and cycle time might be improved.

> Interview a plant manager at a local factory to determine his or her philosophy on process management. What techniques does the company use?

> Does your school survey its faculty and staff to assess issues of engagement, satisfaction, and the work environment? If so, obtain a copy of the survey and analyze it relative to the concepts in this chapter; if not, design one that might be used.

> Research the impacts of the Internet on workforce management practices in an actual firm. One possible approach would be to interview an HR manager at a company that is building e-commerce capability. Another approach might be to visit the websites of se

> Interview some managers at a local company on their approaches to motivation. Summarize their responses and analyze them in the context of motivation theories. Can you provide any suggestions for improving their practices?

> Investigate the extent of team participation at some local companies. What kinds of teams do you find? Do managers believe these teams are effective?

> Survey local companies to determine if and how they use suggestion systems. What levels of participation do they have? Are suggestions tied to rewards and recognitions?

> The Janson Medical Clinic recently conducted a patient satisfaction survey of 100 patients. Using a scale of 1–5, with 1 being “very dissatisfied” and 5 being “very satisfied,â

> Interview managers at a local organization about their workforce-management practices, focusing on engagement and work and job design issues. Report on your perceptions of how well their practices support a high-performance workplace.

> Search some current business periodicals (e.g., Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Business Week) for articles dealing with workforce-management issues. Explain how they relate to the material in this chapter. Are any new approaches or practices emerging?

> Review the most recent list of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and summarize the best practices of these companies, classifying them into themes such as engagement, work environment, training, and so on. Have any of these companies or their bu

> A number of pizza chains or restaurants are probably located around your college campus. Using a focus group of students, conduct an interview to determine what factors are important in selecting a traditional or pizza restaurant. Once you have identifie

> This exercise provides an experience with developing an affinity diagram for analyzing complaints and would best be performed by the class as a whole.75 Each student writes one or more descriptions of personal experiences of frustration and dissatisfacti

> You have undoubtedly made numerous purchases in retail clothing stores such as the Gap, banana republic, Old Navy, and so on. Develop a customer satisfaction survey based upon the five service quality dimensions discussed in this chapter. You should have

> Gather several customer satisfaction surveys or comment cards from local establishments. Analyze them as to their ability to lead to actionable information that will help the organization, and propose any improvements or redesign you deem appropriate.

> Describe some ways that organizations can improve websites and make them more customer-focused. You might consider examining a variety of websites and identifying “best practices.

> Interview some managers of small businesses to determine how they respond to complaints and use complaint information in their organizations.

> You may have visited or purchased items from large computer and software retail stores. In a group brainstorming session, identify those characteristics of such a store that would be most important to you, and design a customer survey to evaluate custome

> Rockstone makes tires for the automotive market. Employees noticed that there is a great deal of congestion at the shipping dock as pallets of material that had been picked in the warehouse were waiting to be moved by forklifts to outbound tractor-traile

> Based on the information in this chapter, propose new approaches for measuring customer satisfaction for your faculty and instructors that go beyond the traditional course evaluation processes that your school may use

> Find an example of a highly publicized service or product failure in the news (such as unreasonable waiting on a plane on a runway or the poor reception on the first release of the iPhone 4). Research and write a short paper on how the company addressed

> Design customer satisfaction questionnaires for high school students and their parents who take a campus visit and are considering applying to your school.

> Perform some research to examine recent trends in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Which economic sectors show improvement? Which don’t? How has the overall index changed?

> Search the Internet to find information about current registration trends for ISO 9000. How widespread is ISO 9000 in the United States as compared to Europe and other global regions?

> Interview some managers at a local company that is pursuing or has pursued ISO 9000 registration. Report on the reasons for achieving registration, the perceived benefits, and the problems the company encountered during the process.

> Interview a quality professional at a local company about its quality management system. Consider questions such as: Does it have a quality manual? Is their QMS integrated with other enterprise business systems?

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