Hank Kolb

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Running Head: QUALITY MANAGEMENT

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

In APA style

2008

Quality Management

I. Introduction
I.1 Quality Management
Managing quality could be somewhat of a difficult business. Although the quality management theory have already stated that quality cost is the cost that is created from preventing or fixing poor quality in the productionprocess, instead of the cost required to increase quality of the products, there are still quite many people who perceive quality management as ‘extra work’ for them. The truth is quite the opposite; quality management is the activity to prevent ‘extra work’ from becoming necessary.
Having the perspective that quality management is an extra work, workers and managers can be reluctant inresponding to quality management initiatives, which could give the manager of the quality assurance department quite a headache. In this paper, I am observing a case study to identify existing quality problems and determine all the causes that contributes to the quality problems. In the final chapter there will be short recommendations on how to deal with the quality assurance issues.

I.2 CorporateBackground

Figure 1 Process at Hank Kolb Office

The above figure represents the process/supply chain along the company where Hank Kolb works for. The company deals with the manufacturing of low-viscosity Greasex since six months ago.

II. Situational Analysis
In the case study, Hank Kolb found himself within a strain of obvious problems. These problems lead to a single outcome,poor quality assurance. The next needed step to be performed is categorizing those problems into groups.
1. Problems with Suppliers
• Low quality supplies, this refers to the low quality plastic nozzle heads for the Greasex can.
2. Problems with Methods and Procedure
• Flawed design procedure, this refers to the absence of tests regarding the effects of the contoured cans onthe filling speed or filling hydrodynamics.
• Questionable evaluation procedure, this refers to the intended decision to promote a foreman which only concern is the quantity of the production and notably underestimate the importance of quality.
• Questionable marketing procedure, this refers to allowing an untested products into the market in order to beat the competition
3.Problems with Machines
• Lack of maintenance, this refers to the usage of a machine not originally designed for the job and the absence of preventive maintenance of the machine
4. Problems with Manpower
• Lack of training (for machine operators), this refer to the absence of formal training on the job process for machine operators.
5. Problems with People and Surroundings• Lack of Motivation, this refers to Hamler’s statement that mistakes happens once in a while and there is actually nothing people are doing to guarantee that similar mistakes are not repeated
• Lack of Quality Standards, this refers Simmons action vented the rejected cans by hand, when it should be done professionally using standardized equipments.

III. Fishbone Diagram
The groupsof problems defined above are the materials for the fishbone diagram. Within this fishbone diagram we can see the cause and effect relationship and how these smaller problems lead to poor quality assurance as a whole (‘Fishbone Diagram', 2002):

Fishbone Diagram

low quality supplies flawed design procedure lack of setting and maintenance
Poor Evaluation
Poor marketingprocedure

Lack of quality standards
Lack of training lack of motivation

IV. Recommendation
IV.1 Problems at Hank Kolb
The problems stated above can be divided into two dimensions, which are the technology (technical) dimension and the human dimension. The technical division includes the low quality supplies and lack of proper maintenance and operational...