SUBJECT: Quality Summary

Interview Notes: Walter Honcho
Walter Honcho has an obsolete view of quality and quality control. He will require solid
arguments before he will be receptive to process changes, since he has an emotional
attachment to the process as it is. It appears from the form of the summary quality statistics
that he does not routinely receive updates on quality in this form. Accordingly, any statements
of fact from him concerning quality will need independent verification. (An example is his
statement about improvement in quality.) His statement that process quality is good is
contradicted by the defect rate in print quality. An item for further study is that the complaint
statistics are not consistent with the defect rates.8
Etcetera
Internal Memorandum
DATE: yesterday
TO: Walter Honcho
FROM: John Loomer
SUBJECT: Quality Summary
Below are summaries of customer complaints and internal defects for the past six months.
Complaints are per 10,000 orders, and defect rates are per 1,000 units. You will note the
improvement we have made in shipping and delivery.
Complaints per 10,000 orders Defects per 1,000 units
Missing Ring 2 Assembly 2
Misplace Print 4 Print Quality 13
Print Quality 23 Print Detail 4
Type Error 6 Edge Flaw 22
Rough Edge 3 Cosmetic 5
Excess Flash 13
Late Shipment 6
Bad Count 4
2.3 Fred Doit, Plant Foreman
The plant foreman is the chief line worker at Etcetera. He manages and supervises all
operations, and reports to Walter Honcho. Fred Doit has been with the company for several
years. He has been trained as a machinist and machine operator, and has a two-year degree
from a local tech. school. While his theoretical knowledge of production problems might be
slim, his working knowledge of the production system is excellent. You meet Mr. Doit after
calling for an appointment, and arranging to meet at the production floor entrance from the
executive offices. While he has an office, Fred spends much of his time on the floor, and your
interview will be conducted as he gives you a tour of the system.
Fred provides you with safety glasses and a lab coat. He tells you that this is one of his
daily tours of the facility, and he will combine his tour with an orientation, if you don’t mind his
stopping to talk with operators along the tour. You ask his permission to record the tour on
your pocket recorder, and he agrees. (Since Fred is about to give you information about the
basic operation of the system, you want to be sure not to miss any critical steps in the process.)
The tour begins as you walk toward a material storage area.
“We are starting at the beginning of the processes for both the plastic and metal products.
Both processes are mostly straight-line, with plastic on your left and metal on your right. The
processes are similar except for the different materials. We store plastic chips, plastic
colouring, and coils of mild steel and brass at this end; they are delivered in bulk from the
receiving dock. The plastic chips are the basic material for the plastic tags, and we add
colouring according to customer order. These are measured into a molding machine, with a
die set for the size and shape we are running. On the other side, we feed metal coil into a
press, where dies stamp out the metal tags.”
“Is there much difference between the metal and plastic tags?”
“No, almost all of our products are standard size and shape, in both plastic and metal. We
keep die sets for all the standard products, and have to have different sets for brass and steel.
The machines are basically standard, except that we have modified the feed and output to fit
our system. Plastics feed onto a conveyor into the trim machine, where we take off rough
edges and square up the tag. It isn’t really flashing, but we call it that. On the metal side, the 9
tags come out in finished shape and size, and we send them through a finish operation, usually
anodizing or just polishing. We used to have a problem with metal tag damage on the
conveyor, but we changed the belt material and speed, and that cleared it up.”
“Are the cycle times about the same on both lines?”
“Yes, they are pretty well balanced. Some finish operations take a little longer on the metal,
but they are done in batches, while the plastics are one-at-a-time, so it balances out. After
trimming, the plastics go into a stamping machine. A die puts whatever symbol or standard
text the customer ordered into the plastic. On the other side the same thing happens to metal
tags in a press. Some metal tags go into an ink-stamping machine instead.”
“The ink-stamping machine looks newer than the rest.”
“Yes, it is. Customers are ordering more metal tags with smooth surface and ink stamping,
because we can put on more symbols at less cost. It is the same as engraving plaques at a
jewellers or sporting goods store. More people buy the smooth finish than the old-fashioned
engraving. That is a pretty nice machine. We can change the symbol or text in a matter of
minutes, and it has taken some load off the custom engraving section. That’s the next stop.
Standard tags go straight to assembly on conveyors our of the press or stamping, but custom
jobs go to engraving. That is mostly plastic now.”
“That gives you cleaner operations, doesn’t it?”
“Much cleaner than when we had metal chips all over. It is a lot easier to clean up around
a plastic engraver. Edith, here, has been around through all these changes, and likes it a lot
better now.”
You stop to talk with Edith Scriptus, lead engraver. After she talks with Doit, you make an
appointment to speak with her later.
“All tags go through assembly. All we do here is attach a metal ring. The machine is
automatic, and the ringwire feeds off a coil, gets wrapped through the hole, and is cut off. Very
little problem with this machine, but it misses a tag now and then. Next stop is inspection.
Hello, John.”
John Loomer is in the inspection area talking to an inspector. He is the QC manager, and
has been told by Honcho that you want to talk to him. You make an appointment for a later
meeting.
“Last stop is packaging. We have standard packages for all tags, with labels cut from the
same order that started the batch. Most batches are shipped within 24 hours of packaging.”
“It seems to be a smoothly running system. Any peculiarities?”