Quality Management II

  MFRG311 Quality Management II   Assignment 2017/18   Imagine that you have recently graduated and have been employed as a Manufacturing Engineer by the imaginaryPlym Forming Co (PFC) which is a small sized (150 person) company that designs and manufactures a wide range of moulded components for the motor industry. At your interview you were told that you would he employed to develop the manufacturing processes and their supporting systems to a level of performance that could justifiably be called “World Class” and as demanded by PFC’s customers. You have joined a very tough business! Now, after your first 12 months with the company and despite a considerable amount of hard work by everybody, the company appears to be no nearer becoming World Class than when you started, and it’s becoming pretty obvious why. You and all the other engineers and managers have had little time for anything other than “fire-fighting” to find temporary fixes for problems that are occurring and, even more alarmingly, reoccurring on a daily basis. On your desk at the moment you have dozens of problems with various processes and systems that need to be addressed, several of which you managed to put a “sticking plaster” on a previously but are now coming back to haunt you. The worst thing is that you believe that you could have sorted them out once and for all if only you had been more systematic in your original approach. Failure to properly sort out the problems when they arose is clearly hugely inefficient in terms of resources and customer satisfaction. Worryingly customers are starting to report poor quality. Your MD has finally decided that something has to be done to change the way his company deals with problems and to introduce a more systematic approach across the business. You have been asked to do a review of possible approaches that the company might adopt and make recommendations on what might be appropriate in such a small company. Your report needs to briefly discuss alternative, systematic, approaches to addressing problems that might be adopted by a small company such as PFC. You need to recommend an appropriate approach which may well be a hybrid of the more commonly published alternatives. You must justify your proposal and include anestimate of any costs along witha realistic assessment of any possible difficulties that the company might have to overcome during its implementation. You particularly need to focus on the problems associated with integrating your proposed approach into the long-term, daily workings of a small company such as PFC. The importance of realism cannot be over emphasised here as it is you (as an engineer at PFC) that is likely to get the job of introducing and maintaining the “more systematic approach” you propose to the MD.   USE YOUR IMAGINATION. Your MD, who is a very experienced graduate, already knows a fair bit about systematic problem solving and you want to impress him with your research and thinking. If you are not an UK based student you may, if you so wish, assume PFC is manufacturing in your home country. In which case you may discuss any particular issues associated with the culture of that country’s people and its industry that might impact on the successful adoption of the systematic approach to problem solving you propose to this small company. Your report must clearly show significant evidence of reading around the subject and be fully and correctly referenced. This assignment contributes 70% of this 10 credit module’s coursework mark and as such should be a significant but concise piece of work of between1,500 to 2,000 words (excluding references, diagrams etc.) and represent approximately 30 hours of work.Please include your word count. Assessment details are attached. To ensure that no one is disadvantaged, any questions regarding this assignment must be made during the normal lecture periods and responses will be given to the entire class. This is an individual piece of work. It is your report in your words and, as always, plagiarism will result on a mark of zero! Submission date Monday 13th November 2017 by 1000 hrs.