The Emporia Mortgage Company $($EMC$)$ is a medium$-$sized mortgage lender that has continued

to do well, despite the $$meltdown$$ in the mortgage lending industry. Prior to the economic

downturn, EMC was a principal supplier of lending services to Southeastern Desert Homes, a

builder of residential communities in several major cities throughout the Southeastern United

States. Because it carefully selected clients who were able to make substantial down payments

for homes, and it avoided sub$-$prime or variable$-$rate mortgage lending, EMC has been shielded

from the effects of $$toxic mortgages$$ on its balance sheet. In fact, EMC expanded its mortgage

refinancing and home remodeling credit operations to two shifts, as other lending company$$s

ability to take on new clients contracted. Soon, they were working six days per week and hiring

additional workers.

Not long after EMC began its second shift operations, it received some complaints about long

mortgage processing times. This information alarmed Peter Purnell, CEO of Emporia Mortgage.

He had retired early from a bank in a cold Midwestern city and decided that he wanted to

relocate to the desert Southwest. He had hiked in the mountains and played golf during the first

six months, but then realized that he needed more of a challenge than the recreational activities

could provide. That was when he started Emporia Mortgage, using his experience in the

mortgage and home loan business. EMC, under Peter$$s leadership, soon built a reputation as a

high$-$quality, if somewhat conservative, lender. Among other things, the company was known for

the capability of its well$-$trained and dedicated employees, who could generally complete the

loan process in around $2-3$ workdays. Thus, Peter never felt the need to consider formal process

control approaches. Now many customers were complaining that it took a week or two to close

on a loan, even with an excellent credit score. In view of the recent complaints, Peter suspected

that the rapid expansion to a full two$-$shift operation, the pressures to produce higher volumes,

and the push to meet requests from high$-$profit customers was causing a breakdown in their

quality.

On the recommendation of the V$.$P$.$ for loan processing, Peter hired a quality consultant to train

the process managers and certain loan workers in statistical process control methods. As a trial

project, one process manager wanted to evaluate the capability of a critical operation that she

suspects might be a major source of the delays. The nominal specification for this processing

operation is $15\mathrm{.}5$ hours with a tolerance of $5$ hours. Thus, the upper and lower specifications are

LSL $=10\mathrm{.}5$ hours and USL $=20\mathrm{.}5$ hours. The consultant suggested inspecting five consecutive

processing times, per loan worker, in the middle of each shift over a $15-$day period and recording

the completion times for loans that they had finished processing. The table in the worksheet

EMC Case in the workbook EMC data.xls $($found on the class website$),$ shows $15$ days$$ data

collected for each shift, by loan worker.

Assignment

Interpret the data in the EMC Case worksheet in the Excel workbook EMCData.xls$,$ establish a

state of statistical control and evaluate the capability of the process to meet specifications.

Consider the following questions: What do the initial control charts tell you? Do any out$-$ofcontrol conditions exist? If the process is not in control, what might be the likely causes, based

on the information that is available? What is the process capability? What is the fraction of

nonconforming? What do the process capability indexes tell the company? Is EMC facing a

serious problem that it needs to address? How might the company eliminate the problems of

slow loan processing?

Hint: Use X bar and R charts, etc