SOM 306, Spring 2008
A. Dechter
Case #1: Delta Plastics, Inc.
Consider the background information and data given in the Delta Plastics (A) case (page 167 in the textbook) and Delta Plastics (B) case (Page 217). Take on the role of Delta’s Director of Manufacturing, Jose De Costa, and prepare a report addressed to Jonathan Fine, Delta’s CEO with your analysis of the case and recommendations. Your report should address the questions given at the end of the two parts of the case (although you should not refer in the report to question 1, question 2, etc.). Use the following additional instructions:
1. Address (justify or criticize) the decision to initiate production without conducting more testing. Discuss the trade-offs among various costs of quality and explain which costs could increase and which could decrease when production starts without more testing.
2. Compare the quality problems of the new material (super plastic) to the problems of the standard material by performing Pareto analysis (as explained on page 153). Use the total number of defects found over the 4 weeks to create a Pareto chart for each of the two types of material. To do this you should first calculate the percent of the total defects that fall in each defect type (uneven edges, cracks, etc.) and then use them to create a bar chart where the various defect types are ordered in decreasing importance from left to right.
3. Since the data given consists of the count of defects found every day over a period of 4 weeks (for both types of plastic and for 5 types of defects) the appropriate control chart in this case would be a C-chart. Based on the data, create C-charts for the air bubble defects for each of the two materials. To this, you will have to calculate the CL, UCL, and LCL for each of the plastics and draw the chart showing the data collected.
The report should include (but is not limited to):
· An introduction that summarizes the situation and the issues to be addressed
· A discussion of the points listed above, including the charts (Pareto, C-charts) and their interpretation
· Recommendations of further actions for improving quality.
The report should not exceed 3 pages including any displays (e.g., charts). Students are strongly encouraged to work on this assignment in teams of 3 students each. The write-up will be evaluated on both the analysis and the presentation (including grammar and spelling) and is due on Wednesday, March 26.