Greasex Line Case Study

1. What are the causes of the quality problems on the Greasex line? Categorize the problems as to whether they related to operations, marketing, management, or finance issues.

Operations:

• The operator of the filling machine has no formal training.

• The equipment they are using was not originally designed for the lower viscosity of Greasex.

• Venting the cans by hand does not tell you whether or not the pressure was at a safe level.

• No preventative maintenance for the equipment.

Marketing:

• The introduction of Greasex had been rushed to beat out the competitors.

• They did not create a proper advertising campaign prior to the launch of the product, and are trying to form it now to increase customer awareness of the product.

Management:

• Management has a “who cares” attitude and only cares about timeliness and quota.

• When mistakes are made no one takes care of them. Management tends to say they’ll take care of it, then never does. Management has a “lack of quality attitude”.

Finance:

• Having so many defects and the equipment breaking so often is costing them money they could be putting into producing.

2. Do you believe the organization is committed to quality? Why or why not?

No, I do not believe this organization is committed to quality. They demonstrated several times that they were not. They are all about

He seemed to care a little about the quality of the plant and hasn’t done much to improve it. He told Hank that it was all up to him and fully in his hands to fix the quality problems at the plant. I think Hank Kolb will need to demonstrate transactional leadership in this situation. These workers need some motivation to improve the quality of their work. If they don’t believe in it already, why would they care if Hank believed in it. If they know that they are going to be punished or rewarded for keeping the quality of their work up to par, they are more likely to do