1. E-Z Open Manufacturing Company is a leading maker of manual can openers. In the year just closed, E-Z Open controlled 17.2% of the manual can opener market in North America.
That placed the company in the number two sales position for manual can openers. The company in the number one position, Saf-T Products Co., had a 22.3% share of the North American market. E-Z Open was eager to expand its market with a new rechargeable battery-operated can opener. Saf-T also has an electric can opener, but it is a countertop model that must be plugged in to operate. E-Z Open thinks it has a more desirable product with a battery-operated model because it will not tie up kitchen counter space, nor will it be encumbered by an electric cord. In addition, both the manual and the electric models now have removable cutter heads that can easily be cleaned.
(Difficulty in keeping can openers clean has been a problem since the first rotary cutter models appeared 80 years ago.)
Already well into the early work of a TQM implementation, E-Z Open is gearing up for a big year. It is at the point where it needs a vision statement, guiding principles, a mission statement, and a set of broad objectives. You have been retained as a consultant to help develop all of these. The company will hold an off-site meeting of the steering committee in two weeks, and you are to attend. It has asked you to provide the “strawman”
documents to kick off the meeting. Your task is to develop the initial versions of each of the documents except the objectives.
2. E-Z Open Manufacturing’s organization structure is straight out of the 1950s. The president is the senior executive, and he has a secretary and five department heads reporting to him. The departments are product development, manufacturing, finance, marketing, and human resources. Each is headed by a vice president (VP). Quality assurance is headed by a manager who reports to the manufacturing VP. The VP of product development has 35 people working on designs for a new family of small kitchen appliances, which the company hopes will render the firm immune to the dreaded can opener demand cycle.
Manufacturing is aware of the new-product development effort and is concerned that it might face problems getting these products into production. Finance figures that the company cannot build mixers with the tools used for making can openers but has no clue as to the investment size. Meanwhile, marketing, gleeful that it will soon have something new to sell, keeps sending ideas for still more new products into product development. Quality assurance is totally occupied inspecting can openers and is out of the loop for the new products. You have gotten a sense for this, and you think the infrastructure is an impediment to the growth the firm is anticipating. What would you have the company do?
3. Using your place of work as the model, how does (or could) TQM benefit it in general, and in particular, what improvements would you expect from following the 20-step implementation process? (If you are a full-time student, and not employed, skip this question.)
4. Using your college as the model, explain how implementing a total quality program might benefit both the institution and its students. Include specific areas for improvement.