Sigtek Case

CASE 1

Quality is one of the emerging concepts for many companies, including Greasex and Sigtek. The need is obvious for some if you ask them, but they generally struggle to define what quality really means. The core of a lot of problems regarding to quality arises at this point.

While some argue that quality is just a fad, others try to focus their business plan on it. The key to success lies on how to define and put quality into practice. Even if there are several differences on the scope and definition of the quality, there are some common grounds. At this point it is important to look at how experts are looking at this issue since they have dedicated their lives on the issue. In spite of several differences, Deming, Juran and Cosby are agreed on some important aspects that we find it valuable to look at which are the management focus and employee contribution.

If we turn our attention on Greasex, it is obvious to us that Mr. Wayne Simmons' action was a clear mistake. A line supervisor should not interfere in inspector's area, even though the quota of his is at stake. At this point, quality department should stop the intervention and a serious warning or other disciplinary action to Wayne Simmons would be appropriate. However, it is not the exact solution to problem because we did not get into the foundations of it. Mr. Simmons' actions was just a consequence of it. We will try to review the real causes of the problem.

The problem starts in the misinterpretation of how the company makes profit. On the surface it seems like selling as much goods as we can seems the most profitable, but the huge element of it, cost, is ignored. Current implementation of rush to fill quota, brings such malfunctioning practices but more importantly, the poor quality brings extra cost on rework, extra resource usage and time inefficiencies. Moreover, the long term effects from bad customer experience due to bad quality is not even calculable. Therefore it is...