Champion Windows is a medium sized manufacturing company located in the GTA. The company employs 125 employees in its one location. Much of their product is sold to small Window and Door companies who then sell and install their products to the retail home market. Another part of their business is to independent contractors for new home builds. Amazing Windows does not do any installation of the product or selling to the final consumer. All products are made to order. The company competes based on reasonable prices, competitive delivery times and aims to ship all orders with three weeks of order receipt.

Jenn Andrews is the new VP of Operations and since coming on board, she has been very concerned about the amount of problems with rejected products found during and at the end of the manufacturing operation.

Jenn feels strongly that there is too much product rejected. "Rejects are too high", said Andrews in the weekly management meeting. She feels strongly that data must be collected and analyzed in order to begin fixing the problems.

As a new employee at Chamption Windows, and a graduate of Seneca College, you have been asked to help review and analyze the quality data. Although you will not make technical recommendations, you should be able to help them figure out what the problems are and to point them in the right direction.

Your Task:

You have been asked to look at the quality data for the entire facility for the month of January 2023. You have also been asked to tour the facility, talk to employees, and gather information to make recommendations.

Process Overview:

There are several assembly areas where employees and machines assemble production runs of various orders of windows. There is always one inspector in each area who performs 100% inspection, and another employee who carefully packages them and prepares the order for delivery to customer's facility. Each order may contain as few as five items, or for a larger customer, up to 80 items. It is important that each order is shipped complete or a separate truck may have to be dispatched with the missing item(s). Some orders are often shipped directly to the job sites on the day of installation. One missing window causes complaints, extra transportation and can result in loss of future business.

Currently, products that are found faulty by the inspector are to be sent to a special team of 2 employees, in the repair department. These employees are responsible to evaluate, repair and document their work. Some product cannot be repaired and is designated as "scrap" and sent to the garbage. The remainder is repaired. Often product needs to be repaired right away so the entire order is not delayed.

There is a constant supply of products waiting to be evaluated by the repair team. Scheduling the work in this department and the number of "rush" jobs is problematic.

Components to assemble the windows and doors are received in large quantities from Canadian and American suppliers. These supplies include aluminum, vinyl glass, trim, and a variety of other components such as latches, handles, screen etc. After inspection and storage, quantities for one day's production are sent directly to the different production areas, every night for the next day's production. Goods that do not pass receiving inspection are held, and sent back to suppliers. There is a backlog of goods waiting to be returned to suppliers.

Frequently, a product is returned from the customer due to an error in the dimension of a product or a poor fit. This becomes a priority to replace, as it can hold up an entire installation.

Watch the following real-life video about problems with window manufacturing defects during the installation process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2_uJwSwvn0

Your Actions:

Your discussions with supervisors in the facility did not yield any definite clues as to the reasons for all the defects. There seemed to be many different types of rejects piled in various locations throughout the facility. The employees assembling the product seem to be experienced, but do complain about being rushed to complete the orders so that trucks can depart with full orders.

Your next stop was at the Quality Control Department, where you obtained the records for the Assembly Department rejects, for the last month. See next tab.

Complete the following in a new tab.

1. Create a PARETO TABLE and GRAPH using the reject data from January 2023.

2. Create a RUN CHART (line chart) for each of the top two Defects in your Pareto Analysis. Your goal is to look for any patterns or relationships. The dates belong on the X axis and the number of rejects on the Y axis. ( TWO run charts needed)

3. Prepare a Fishbone Diagram indicating the reasons that might be contributing to the errors. Aim for a minimum of three points on each line.

4. Jenn Andrews has commented about the possibility of implementing Total Quality Management into Champion Windows. Discuss in one paragraph how TQM can help reduce defects to the customers.

5. From the information you have discovered, give your THREE main recommendations that Amazing Windows should address in order to solve the problems they are facing. Use a TEXT BOX. Be sure to incorporate at least one point from the teachings of one of the Quality Gurus discussed in class. List them as #1, #2, #3. Cite any references.

Date	Colour	Excess Glue	Out of square	Scratch	Latch	Poor Seal	Size	Condensation
3	1		1	1	2	1
4	3	2		5			1
5	2	2	2	3	1	2	4	1
6				2	2		2
9	4	5	5	4	6	3	2	4
10	1			4	4		2
11	1	2		4		1		1
12	3	5	1	6	5		1
13				5	4	4		1
16	3	5	1	6	4	5	4	3
17	4			5	7		1
18	1	3	2	4	8	2	2	1
19				1				2
20	1	5	2	6	2		2
23	3	2	4	4	5	6	3	2
24	2		1	2	2	4	2	2
25			2	2			1
26	1	3		5	1	2
27	2	1	1	5	2		2	1
30	5	4	2	4	5	6	4	2
31	3	1	1	1	2	2	4	2

Explanations
Colour-	vinyl or aluminum colour is inconsistent
Excess Glue-	Glue leaves a clump or residue on glass or frame
Out of Square -	Out of tolerance dimension for square
Scratch -	the frame has been scratched, not accepted
Latch -	problem with the quality of the latch or the installation
Poor Seal -	Seal between layers of glass not airtight
Size-	out of tolerance dimensions on length or width
Condensation -	Glass was sealed without proper cleaning