Chapter 12, Problem 49AP

a)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How management contribute towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction: Management has a great responsibility in bring about proper quality standards within the organization. Regardless of the product type or the service the management should ensure that they have achieved the relevant performance measures in catering the ‘quality’.

Explanation of Solution

The management contributes towards the poor quality of an organization as they fail in implementing proper quality management program. They fail in investing and maintaining in such a program as they do not identify their responsibility in contributing towards the quality of an organization rather, they think that it is just the responsibility of the front-line employees and the production employees.

b)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How labor contribute towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction: Labor plays a major role towards managing the quality of an organization. It is the manpower, the expertise knowledge as well as the operations that need to be carried out in converting the raw materials into the desired final outcome.

Explanation of Solution

Labor can contribute heavily on the poor quality of an organization. This may include employee under performance, repetitive absenteeism and even lack of knowledge about the manufacturing or the service process. Lack of employee involvement has led towards poor quality management within the organization. Employee should be well trained so that they will be able to perform their duties without any deviances while making correct actions in filling up the competency gaps.

c)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How equipment maintenancecontributes towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction:Equipment maintenance is important in order to minimize the machine downtime. Machine downtime impact the quality levels as the company will fail in delivering their orders or services when they have a high level of machine downtime.

Explanation of Solution

Poor equipment maintenance will heavily damage the overall performance of the organization, especially in manufacturing companies where most of the tasks will be conducted through the usage of the machinery. In such situations poor equipment maintenance will interfere the production process of the company. That may on the other hand will impact the quality as some stages of the manufacturing will have to be done manually that will complicate the whole process and may even lead towards production errors and deviances.

d)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How equipment design contributes towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction:Equipment design contributes immensely towards the quality of an organization. It plans and operates the equipment related to a production process efficiently in order to ensure that the relevant quality standards have been achieved with minimum level of production errors.

Explanation of Solution

Poor equipment design will mess up the whole production process. Equipment design may differ from one product to another however the company should ensure that the equipment have been properly design allocated in order to meet the maximum quality level as well as the maximum number of outputs. Equipment design is important in converting the raw materials into the final output; therefore, the equipment design should be well organized otherwise there will be a higher likelihood for production defects to occur. This in return will lead the company towards poor quality

e)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How control and monitoring contribute towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction:Control and monitoring contribute immensely towards maintaining the standard quality levels within an organization. There should be standards set for quality assurance as well as the quality of an organization in order to control, monitor as well as improve the quality standards.

Explanation of Solution

An organization will not be able to survive for a long time without a proper process of controlling and monitoring. When it comes to the quality the relevant quality standards cannot be achieved without a proper quality assurance and quality control system. Lack of quality assurance within the organization will increase the risk of defected products or even unsatisfied services that may lead towards customer dissatisfaction. On the other hand lack of quality control that may lead the final output to show contrasting effects when compared to the product specifications that may confuse the customers.

f)

Summary Introduction

Interpretation: How product design contributes towards the poor quality of an organization.

Concept Introduction:Product design should always go hand in hand with the market opportunities, customer preferences, vision, mission as well as the objectives of the organization. Product design without considering the above factors will not prosper as they will fail in gaining the customer attraction. Hence a poor product design will also lead towards poor quality management within the organization.

Explanation of Solution

The quality of the finished goods lies mainly with the design of the product. If the company has failed in conducting enough market researches as well as enough testing phases prior manufacturing or introducing the product to the marketplace. Identification of customer needs is significantly important towards product designing phase as no matter how well the product has been manufactured with the highest quality level, the customer will still find fault with it. When designing a product a company should always ensure to set the quality standards, quality assurance systems as well as quality control systems in place in order to monitor, evaluate and even improve the quality levels throughout the product design process in order to ensure that the final output will be highly accepted by the customers.