Case Report Hank Kolb, Director of Quality Assurance

Group 17 Navid Razavi Frederike Schmidt

Introduction The Case Hank Kolb, Director of Quality Assurance is about a production line of an industrial product plant, called Greasex. The text deals with several manufacturing problems, within the production of spraying cans for the high-technology sector, of Greasex, which arise from the contradiction of interests between the quality and manufacturing department, due to time pressure in the production.
Cause Effect

Personnel

Plant maintenance

Purchasing

Untrained operator of the filling equipment

Old automated filling equipment 1.Already used for another production before 2. Not designed for this specific production process

Bad quality of supplier products 1. Bad quality of plastic nozzle heads, due to a rush order

Time pressure for production staff

No regular maintenance 1. high non-standard downtimes

Increase in application pressure to fit the top to the can

Problem: High pressure in cans / lack of quality

Special contoured cans which act as a venturi 1. No tests of filling speed or filling hydronamics of the contoured cans High pressure from the companys headquarter Market share is more important than quality

1. Pressure on reducing costs 2. Pressure on time management

Inaccuracies of manufacturing management

Product rushed to market

Design and packaging

Manufacturing Management

Marketing

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First of all, the spray cans of Greasex have a quality issue. Due to the high pressure

in the cans, there is an accidental risk for customers which could lead to a fatal image loss of the company. There are several causes mentioned by the director of quality assurance. The untrained operator for the filling equipment and the time pressure of the manufacturing personnel leads to mistakes and inaccuracies during the production. Furthermore, there is no regular maintenance of the filling equipment, which is also very old and not designed for the production line Greasex. This leads to high non-standard downtimes of the production process and causes the time pressure of the manufacturing personnel. Because of the time pressure coming from the production-planning department, there is an inadequate supply of nozzle heads, an important part of the cans. Due to the unbalanced amount of this parts, the company is giving rush orders to the suppliers, which ends in a lack of quality of the nozzle heads, because of the time pressure. Another cause for the quality lack of the

spray cans is the special contoured design of the cans. It is uncertain whether the design has an impact on the high pressure of the cans, because the design was never tested for high filling speed. However, the director of quality assurance assumes this special design to act as a venturi. Moreover, the manufacturing management gets high pressure on cost-reduction and time-management, which leads to inaccuracies in production management. For the marketing-department, market-share and short delivery times seem to be more important than the quality of the end product and as a result the manufacturing department missed to perform appropriate quality checks. The most critical quality issue is the general attitude towards the product quality in all departments. It is obvious that the different departments are not aware of their impact on the other departments and the general product quality. The departments are mostly trying to reach their short-term goals without thinking about a long-term strategy, which would be most healthy for the whole company. An example would be that the manufacturing department tries to fit the bad quality plastic nozzles of the supplier to the cans by an increase of the application pressure, instead of trying to order the nozzles earlier, so the supplier has time to improve the quality of the nozzles. Another option would be to search for a new supplier who can produce with a higher quality. The most relevant opportunities for the quality improvement of Greasex would be the proper improvement of the machine and quality check. These two non-valueadded steps have a big impact on the overall performance of the whole production. As mentioned in the opportunity flow diagram below, it is necessary to solve the main problem of the production process, the not correct working filling machine, and to introduce a controlling instance to assure oneself about the quality of the end product, before it is delivered to the customers.

To set up a continuous set up improvement program for the company, the director of quality assurance should make use of the six-sigma model. This model includes the definition, the measurement, the analysis, the improvement, and the control of a certain problem, in order to run a good quality management and to produce a longterm high quality product. By the use of the Six-Sigma Model, the director of quality assurance could come to outcoming actions like training of the manufacturing staff, acquisition of new machines, search for new suppliers, and improvement of internal communications. Problems which could occur while trying to improve the quality awareness of the departments are for example the low experience of the new director of quality assurance, who just got hired and does not have the reputation in the company to lead the company in consideration to quality management.