Beads R Us is a producer of high-quality plastic beads for commercial use. The production process is as described in the red bead experiment (Note:  a summary of the experiment is provided in the appendix.) Workers produce beads in lots of fifty by dipping a paddle into a bin of beads and withdrawing fifty at a time. Some of the beads are red; red beads are defective. If the production lot is less than fifty, the absent beads count as defects. Recently, management has become dissatisfied with the number of defects during production. Beads R Us obtains materials from Bead World, one of three suppliers worldwide. Materials include defective beads, which must be eliminated prior to delivery to customers. A major customer of Beads R Us has informed management that it will reject any future delivery that includes more than fifteen defective beads in a sample of fifty to be taken on the receiving dock at the time of delivery. Beads R Us has engaged your project team on a consulting contract to analyze its process, identify any shortcomings, and recommend solutions. 

Data Collection:
Six members of your project team were secretly sent to Beads R Us as new employees to gain first-hand experience with the bead production process. They worked for five days before being withdrawn. The performance data for the six team members are summarized in the table below (Note: As each team is required to generate its own dataset, data provided in table is only for illustration.) 

 

The six team members also prepared a report of their work experiences as summarized below. 

1-    Training is not good. New hires are not given any training. They are immediately placed on the production line and told to do what the person next to them is doing. Beads R Us calls this “on-the-job training.”
2-    Communication is not good. Workers are not allowed to ask questions and are not allowed to talk to each other while on the line. Anyone caught talking is punished. Beads R Us managers tell workers that there is no time for frivolous behavior. They are paid to work, not talk.
3-    Management is not good. When things go well, managers take all the credit. When things do not go well, managers blame the workers and threaten punishment.
4-    Leadership is not good. Managers are seldom seen on the production line. When they do show up, they walk quickly through the area and tell people to do better or their jobs are at risk.
5-    The work environment is not good. The production area is covered with posters containing quality slogans such as “Mistakes cost us money,” “Work hard, keep your job,” “We’re counting on YOU,” and “No defect is a good defect.” Workers have trouble understanding the meaning of these slogans and have no idea about how to implement them.
6-    Quotas are unreasonable. Management has assigned quotas for production that have never been achieved by anyone. Managers continually harp on the quotas and threaten punishment of those who do not make quota.
7-    Rewards are inconsistent and inequitable. Two people can produce the same quality and one gets a reward while the other does not. A worker can be rewarded one day for good performance and punished the next day for poor performance. A worker who performed particularly well one day received an on-the-spot bonus and a pin that said “Employee of the Day.” The next day, the same employee was fired for poor performance.

 

Requirements: 
Apply your knowledge about the seven basic quality tools and meet all contractual requirements. Specifically: 

 

1.    Analyze the process of bead production at Beads R Us using the outputs obtained from the following.
a. 

Name	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Total	Average
Worker 1	10	16	13	11	13	63
Worker 2	18	14	14	10	15	71
Worker 3	14	12	0	13	14	53
Worker 4	11	11	13	15	11	61
Worker 5	11	11	12	12	11	57
Worker 6	11	12	13	11	14	61
Total	75	76	65	72	78	366
Average

c.    Prepare bar charts of total number of defects by both worker and weekday.
d.    Prepare a pie chart of the number of defects by day relative to the total number of defects.
e.    Prepare a stacked column bar chart of number of defects of both worker by weekday and weekday by worker.
f.    Prepare box plots of defects by both worker and weekday.
g.    Construct Pareto charts of number of defects by both worker and weekday.
h.    Prepare a histogram of number of defects observed.
i.    Prepare scatter diagrams of both workers and weekdays and number of defects produced.
j.    Conduct chi square test to check if workers and weekdays are independent variables.
k.    Construct np chart of the number of defects by day/ by worker to determine system performance and if expected performance meets customer requirements. Assume that the assignable causes are identified, the related data point(s) can be removed, and control limits can be revised.
l.    Construct a flow chart to better understand the steps in the bead production process. Use the information provided in the appendix if needed.
2.    Considering the information provided by the six team members in their report, construct cause and effect diagram to identify any shortcomings (categorized as people, policy, procedures, and equipment) that indicate inability to meet customer requirements.
3.    Recommend solutions that eliminate any shortcomings.