Quality Operation

National Furniture

National Furniture is a large retail design and furniture store. The store often orders special merchandise at the request of its customers. However, the store recently experienced problems with the on-time delivery of these special orders.

Sometimes the orders were never received, resulting in irate customers.

The process of fulfilling a special order begins with the sales associate who records the customer information and obtains approval from a manager to process the order. The sales associate puts the order form in a bin for the office manager to fax to the special order department at the regional office. When the office manager faxes the special order forms from the bin, she files them in a notebook.

If a problem arises with the order, the manager receives notification and contacts the sales associate who took the order to decide what needs to be done next. Typical problems that are often observed include sales associates not filling out the order form completely or entering a request date that is impossible to fulfill. Sometimes the sales associate does not put the form in the proper bin, so the form, never gets faxed. Other 社mes, sales associates are asked to obtain more information from the customer, but they fail to call the customer back or do not inform the office associate to refax the form after getting additional information jErom the customer.

At the regional office, the special order department receives the fax from the store, reviews it, and informs the store if additional informa社on is needed. When all the information is complete, they process the order. Sometimes they lose or misplace the form after it arrives on the fax machine, order the wrong merchandise, or fail to notify the store when additional information is needed or when the merchandise should be expected to arrive.

Discussion Questions

1. Develop a process map for special orders. What steps might you suggest to improve this process?

2. Construct a...