4 The country of Europia has an extensive historical and industrial heritage. It has many

Question

4 The country of Europia has an extensive historical and industrial heritage. It has many tourist sites (such as castles,

palaces, temples, houses and factories) which attract visitors from home and abroad. Most of these tourist sites have

gift shops where visitors can buy mementos and souvenirs of their visit. These souvenirs often include cups, saucers,

plates and other items which feature a printed image of the particular tourist site.

The Universal Pottery Company (UPC) is the main supplier of these pottery souvenir items to the tourist trade. It

produces the items in its potteries and then applies the appropriate image using specialised image printing machines.

UPC also supplies other organisations that require personalised products. For example, it recently won the right to

produce souvenirs for the Eurasian Games, which are being held in Europia in two years time. UPC currently ships

about 250,000 items of pottery out of its factory every month. Most of these items are shipped in relatively small

packages. All collections from the factory and deliveries to customers are made by a nationwide courier company.

In the last two years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of complaints about the quality of these

items. The complaints, from gift shop owners, concentrate on two main issues:

(i) The physical condition of goods when they arrive at the gift shop. Initial evidence suggests that ‘a significant

number of products are now arriving broken, chipped or cracked’. These items are unusable and they have to be

returned to UPC. UPC management are convinced that the increased breakages are due to packers not following

the correct packing method.

(ii) Incorrect alignment of the image of the tourist site on the selected item. For example, a recent batch of 100 cups

for Carish Castle included 10 cups where the image of the castle sloped significantly from left to right. These

were returned by the customer and destroyed by UPC.

The image problem was investigated in more depth and it was discovered that approximately 500 items were

delivered every month with misaligned images. Each item costs, on average, $20 to produce.

As a result of these complaints, UPC appointed a small quality inspection team who were asked to inspect one in

every 20 packages for correct packaging and correct image alignment. However, although some problems have been

found, a significant number of defective products have still been delivered to customers. A director of UPC used this

evidence to support his assertion that the ‘quality inspection team is just not working’.

The payment system for packers has also been such an issue. It was established ten years ago as an attempt to boost

productivity. Packers receive a bonus for packing more than a target number of packages per hour. Hence, packers

are more concerned with the speed of packing rather than its quality.

Finally, there is also evidence that to achieve agreed customer deadlines, certain managers have asked the quality

inspection team to overlook defective items so that order deadlines could be met.

The company has decided to review the quality issue again. The director who claimed that the quality inspection team

is not working has suggested using a Six Sigma approach to the company’s quality problems.

Required:

(a) Analyse the current and potential role of quality, quality control and quality assurance at UPC. (15 marks)

Answer 1

正确答案：
(a) Quality
Quality has become an increasingly important issue in organisations. For some companies it is an important differentiator,
allowing the organisation to pursue a high price/high quality strategy. For other organisations, such as UPC, the quality
threshold requirements for their products have increased significantly over the last few years. Customers have increased
expectations of product construction, longevity and reliability. Quality is rarely absolute; and it is usually constrained by such
factors as selling price. This particularly applies in UPC’s market where it is likely that the quality of the product is limited by
the relatively low price consumers are willing to pay for it. Quality concerns how a product meets its designed purpose and
satisfies its original requirements. The target selling price is likely to be one of those requirements.
At UPC quality appears to be defined in terms of the physical condition of the products (no breakages, cracks or chips) and
in the accurate positioning of the printed image on the product. These are the reasons given by the UPC management for
setting up the inspection team. However, this perception of quality would have to be confirmed by the customer. It may be
that other issues, such as the density of the printed image, are also important to the customer but have not yet been fed back
to UPC.
Many definitions of quality include references to the customer. They stress meeting the requirements of the customer or user
of the product. UPC might benefit from re-considering who it perceives to be the customer. Their current perception appears
to be that the customer is the gift shop that sells the product. It is not the ultimate person or consumer who buys the product
from the shop and uses it. For this consumer, other issues may be significant such as:
– The ability to wash the item in a dishwasher.
– The long-term safety of the product, for example: the handle does not break off a cup and spill its content on the drinker.
– The long-term clarity of the image on the item after many washes.
Investigating the issue of quality from the perspective of the consumer may identify other problems that need addressing.
Finally, quality has to be considered in the context of responsibility. UPC currently uses a courier company to deliver its
products to the gift shops. This means that freedom from breakage is only partly under UPC’s control. The delivery condition
of products is partly determined by the care with which the courier company handles the package. Hence delivery quality
depends on courier performance as well as on packaging care. In contrast, the quality of the printed image on the item is
completely within the control of UPC.
Quality control
Quality Control (QC) is primarily concerned with checking and reviewing work that has been done. It is an inspection system
for ensuring that pre-determined quality standards are being met. In theory, the responsibility for the control of quality lies
with the person undertaking the process, whether it is the production of goods, delivery of a service or the passing of
information. QC is the part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements.
In many quality control systems, sample products are removed and inspected. Defects in these sampled products may lead
to the whole batch being inspected and defective items destroyed. This is essentially the role of the inspection team at UPC,
where 1 in 20 packed packages are inspected for accuracy of printing and correctness of packing. Incorrect packing in a
sampled package will lead to the inspection (and potential re-packing) of all packages packed by that employee. Failure in
the accuracy of the printed image is likely to lead to the destruction of the whole batch, and the re-setting of the production
imaging machine to address the positional inaccuracy of the image. It has to be stressed that, in this instance, quality control
is a sampling activity and so it is very likely that defective batches will get through to the customer. To criticise the inspection
unit for failing to find defective batches (‘the quality inspection team is just not working’) fails to recognise the sampling nature
of the role.

In the context of UPC there are at least three further factors that inhibit effective quality control.
– The quality control of the positioning of the image takes place too late in the process. It should take place before packing,
not after it. Valuable packing time and materials can be wasted by packing items with defective images which are found
when the package is inspected.
– The reward system for packers is based on the throughput of packages rather than the quality of packing. In the past
many manufacturing organisations have valued productivity more than quality and reflected this in their reward system.
This is the case at UPC where faults in packing are not reflected in the reward system of the packers. In fact, the very
opposite appears to be true. Packers are incentivised to pack quickly, not effectively. Beckford suggests that ‘a major
barrier to quality may be built into the reward system of the organisation’.
– There is evidence that the inspection team has participated in the achievement of the required throughput targets by
passing packages that did not meet the required quality. This is clearly giving the wrong message, but the inspection
team is only reflecting the need for the company to meet certain deadlines.
Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance (QA) is the part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be
fulfilled. It may be defined as a set of procedures designed to ensure that quality standards and processes are adhered to and
that the final product meets or exceeds the required technical and performance requirements. Quality assurance covers
activities such as product design, development, production, installation and servicing. It also sets the pre-determined
standards required for effective quality control. If quality control is primarily concerned with detecting defective products, then
quality assurance is primarily about the prevention of quality problems through planned and systematic activities.
There is little evidence of quality assurance at UPC. However, the company may wish to consider:
– Setting quality targets and delegating responsibility for achieving those targets to the people who are meant to achieve
them. In UPC it would be preferable to give responsibility for product quality to the employees who actually make the
products and to reflect this in their reward structure. One of the roles of QA is to enable quality improvement initiatives.
A possible initiative is to investigate the purchasing of imaging machines (or adopting the current ones) with a facility
to automatically assess the accuracy of the image before printing. If the image falls outside certain tolerances then it
may be feasible for the machine to automatically adjust it before printing. If these machines were installed, it would be
the responsibility of QA to ensure that they were calibrated correctly and to verify that every product had undergone the
necessary check.
– QA also offers quality advice and expertise and trains employees in quality matters. They would set standards for
materials used in packing and establish systems for monitoring raw materials sent by suppliers to ensure that these
standards were met. It may also be possible to improve how items are physically laid out in the package to reduce the
chance of damage. The internal layout of the packages may be constructed in such a way that they only allow products
to be packed in a prescribed pattern. QA would be involved in defining that prescribed pattern and training packers to
use it – as well as subsequently monitoring that the prescribed pattern had been followed.
– The increased importance of quality means that many customers now demand some proof that the supplier is capable
of consistently producing quality products. This proof is part of the ‘confidence’ factor of QA and may be demonstrated
by a third party certification, such as ISO 9000. Certification helps show the customer that the supplier has a
commitment to consistently supplying a quality product. QA will be concerned with gaining and maintaining such
certification and this should assist the company in securing and retaining contracts.
At UPC the current inspection team is focused on QC. The responsibility for this should be moved to the production process
itself or to the people who actually undertake that process. The inspection team could then focus on QA, setting standards
for quality, establishing how those standards should be monitored, and then ensuring that such monitoring is being
performed. In making this transition, the company will move to a culture of attempting to prevent faults rather than relyingsolely on detecting them.