Hank Kolb, Director, Quality Assurance:

Sunil Kumar Somnath Om

Hank Kolb
Hank is the QC manager Been at this job for 4 weeks Good guy didnt go atomic when he found out about problems, didnt assign fault He was hired to ensure quality in a large plant that is known to have a lax attitude about quality and safety

Product Line

Among other products, the focus of the case was Greasex Hanks boss wants him to shape up the plant

Problems: Personnel, Plant Maintenance and Purchasing

Big plant (1200 employees) Machine operator has no formal job training He was recently transferred from shipping No where to be found, reliability? Equipment not designed specifically for Greasex (designed for a product w/ lower viscosity)

Problems: Personnel, Plant Maintenance and Purchasing

12 work orders in 6 months Filling head on machine malfunctioning Only running at <70% capacity Plastic nozzle heads for bottles are bad Lax attitude of purchasing agents Claim theyll talk to reps when they get the chance

Quality Focus
Hank Kolb should begin by getting buy in from plant senior leadership team on the need to focus on quality and laying out the benefits of pursuing a robust program. Given the support of the General Manager, the Plant Manager should agree on this being a good thing to help the plant. Quality Program, Initiatives, and Procedures to be defined / refined Set Quality goals for the department and communicate to the plant Standard work instructions for factory taking quality defects into consideration

Resolution of Problems
Mandatory formal training regarding operation of all factory machinery Flow chart completed of the Grease-X manufacturing processes done by multi-functional team of quality, maintenance, purchasing, design engineering, packaging, &manufacturing Look into ordering equipment to produce the product properly, try and get used equipment first and then purchase new equipment (Equipment not very good at making the product). Purchasing needs to hold suppliers accountable for delivering quality products. Set up Supplier DPPM measure and set goals to be achieved to produce the product efficiently Design Engineer needs to look at can design to see if it could be causing some of the problems with the pressure

Resolution of Problems
Manufacturing needs to understand quality function important throughout the production of the product and training needs to happen on the floor around working with the other departments once flow chart is completed from multi-functional team Plant Manager needs to reach out to the marketing team and let them know site needs to fix quality issues so the product coming out may be down temporarily while the issues are being fixed. Stress that once it is done, they should see more product that is correct coming out of the plant Use Histogram over time to evaluate if the defects are going down. Institute Control Charts with strict upper and lower limits that need to be met for the pressure of the Grease-X line.

Conclusion
Number of decisions need to be considered throughout product life cycle Quality is easier to put in at the beginning rather than later Design should have tested contour design for potential pressure issues Machines capabilities required to produce product should have been assessed Worker capabilities and training program Robust supplier quality process in place Quality system in place and properly implemented

Thank You