2013

Brad Fink

CIT 492

4/4/2013

"Surround yourself with the best people

you can find, delegate authority, and don't

interfere as long as the policy you've

decided upon is being carried out."

— Ronald Reagan

Quality Management

4/18/2013 1

Executive Summary A school teacher has noticed poor grades from a recent exam; she has identified some of

the reasons for this and needs to construct a Pareto chart to help her solve the problems

from the biggest to smallest.

Theresa Shotwell’s restaurant in Tallahassee, Florida has recorded data for eight recent

customers and wants a graph depicting these results in order for her to identify what may

be the cause of some deficiencies concerning the number of trips a waiter/waitress takes

to the kitchen per order and the time required for a customer to order a meal and the time

it takes to reach the table.

Richard Dulski is in need of help figuring out the cause root of the jam’s coming out for

sales not being of top grade quality, he has decided to categorize these faults using a

fishbone diagram and the 4 “M’s”, (Manpower, Method, Material and Machinery).

A friend whom lives in Korea has never seen a self-serve gas station, after trying to

explain to him the process over email, he still had a hard time conjuring the entire

process, to help him out, I have drawn out a flow chart as to what the process is actually

like.

Quality Management

4/18/2013 2

Contents

Poor Grades..........................................................................................................................3

Shotwell's Resuarant............................................................................................................5

Richard Dulski's Jam...........................................................................................................7

Self-Serve Station................................................................................................................9

Summary............................................................................................................................11

Quality Management

4/18/2013 3

Poor Grades Ashley Jones, a Sophomore High School teacher has just finished grading a recent exam

and noticed a drop in the latest one. After researching and talking to her students she has

determined nine events which most likely are the cause of some of the problems which

have been identified in Table 1.

Table 1 –Reasons for Poor Grades

Once Ashley entered all her data in a spreadsheet, (Reasons and Frequency), the first

thing she did was sum all the values of the frequencies which is 68 deficiencies in all.

The next column to the right is the percent of total, this is done by taking the frequency

number for each reason and dividing it by the total number of the frequency, to make this

more understandable, taking the frequency value of 15 for the first reason and divide it by

68 which gives a percent total of 22%.

The next column is the cumulative percent, this is the Cumulative additions of the

(Percent of Total); Table 2 shows just how this is done.

Table 2 –Cumulative Percent Calculations

15 22% 22%

7 10% 32%

25 37% 69%

2 3% 72%

2 3% 75%

9 13% 88%

1 1% 90%

3 4% 94%

4 6% 100%

68 100%

Percent of Total Cumulative Percent

Total:

Calculator batteries died during exam

Forgot exam was scheduled

Felt ill during exam

Reasons for Poor Grades Frequency

Insufficient time to complete

Late arrival to exam

Difficulty understanding material

Insufficient preparation time

Studied wrong material

Distractions in exam room

Reason for Poor Grade Frequency

Percent

of Total Calculations

Cumulative

Percent

Difficulty understanding material 25 37% ( = ) 37%

Insufficient time to complete 15 22% (37% + 22%)= 59%

Distractions in exam room 9 13% (59% + 13%) = 72%

Late arrival to exam 7 10% (72% + 10%) = 82%

Felt ill during exam 4 6% (82% + 6%) = 88%

Forgot exam was scheduled 3 4% (88% + 4%) = 93%

Insufficient preparation time 2 3% (93% + 3%) = 96%

Studied wrong material 2 3% (96% + 3%) = 99%

Calculator batteries died during exam 1 1% (99% + 1%) = 100%

Cumulative

Calculations

Quality Management

4/18/2013 4

Poor Grades

Looking at Table 1 and Table 2, you will notice the sequence is slightly different, to

make the process of constructing the Pareto chart easy, the data was sorted from the

largest frequency to the smallest. Figure 1 shows the end results of the Pareto chart, this

will put the data into perspective for Ashley to resolve the issues.

April 15, 2013Poor Grades Chart

25

159

Fre

quen

cy

7

43 2 2 1

Dif

ficu

lty

un

der

stan

din

g

mat

eria

l

Insu

ffic

ien

t ti

me

to

com

ple

te

Dis

trac

tion

s in

exa

m

room

Lat

e ar

riva

l to

exa

m

Fel

t il

l d

uri

ng

exam

For

got

exam

was

sch

edu

led

Insu

ffic

ien

t

pre

par

atio

n t

ime

Stu

die

d w

ron

g

mat

eria

l

Cal

cula

tor

bat

teri

es d

ied

du

rin

g ex

am

Cumulative Percent

Frequency

Figure 1 –Poor Grades Pareto Chart

Based on the data in Figure1, Ashley now knows she needs to reconfigure the way the

questions and material associated with them is priority one. Once that situation has been

fixed, she can move on to the second, third and so on.

Quality Management

4/18/2013 5

Shotwell’s Restaurant

Theresa Shotwell has taken notice of some deficiencies in her restaurant, in particular the

time from when a customer orders a meal and the time the food arrives at the table, along

with this the number of trips during some of the orders are exceeding other orders.

Theresa wants you to graph the eight points to help her identify the problem and help

with a solution. To help Theresa, a scatter diagram will help show where the deficiencies

may be and will plot all eight specific occurrences she has provided. Table 3 shows the

data that has been provided for the diagrams.

Table 3 –Theresa’s Deficiency Data

With the data in Table 3, it is apparent that there is a better way to portray the

information, by using the scatter diagram there answers should be relatively easy is

identify. Figure 2 shows such a diagram for the number of trips to the kitchen per

customer.

Customers Number of Trips Time to Oder Food

1 4 10.5

2 5 12.75

3 3 9.25

4 2 8

5 3 9.75

6 4 11

7 6 14

8 5 10.75

Figure 2 – Trips to Kitchen Scatter Diagram

Trip

s to

Kitc

hen

Number of Customers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Shotwell’s Resaurant (Trips to Kitchen)

Quality Management

4/18/2013 6

Shotwell’s Restaurant

Looking at the scatter diagram in Figure 2, Theresa can now determine that at the half

way mark the number of trips to the kitchen has dropped dramatically. Also, the first few

customers and especially the last few customers require more trips that may indicated

improper orders have either been taken, or the waiter/waitress have not asked if the

customers will require any special items with their meals.

To get a better idea of what is going on another scatter diagram has been constructed

showing the time when the food was ordered and the time it arrived to the table, this is

shown in Figure 4.

Tim

e to

Ord

er F

oo

d

Number of Customers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Shotwell’s Restaurant (Time To Order)

Figure 4 –Time to Order Food Scatter Diagram

Again, looking at the scatter diagram in Figure 4, the time a customer orders food and the

time it takes to arrive have very similar characteristics as the scatter diagram in Figure 3.

Now that Theresa knows the both are related, she will have to determine the cause and

effect, and more importantly, why are the first few customers and the last few waiting

longer for their orders and are the numerous trips to the kitchen the cause.

Perhaps this is just a case of a worker just coming on shift and getting burned out at the

end, in either case, as owner Theresa has a responsibility to get more involved with her

employees and her customers.

Quality Management

4/18/2013 7

Richard Dulski’s Jam

There have been issues with Richards Jams being sold with more complaints than he

would desire. Richard would like to study the issue and determine the root cause of his

product coming out bad. In order for Richard to see all the possible reasons and why the

process is having difficulties, he has decided to create a fishbone diagram.

Richard has decided to categorize these faults using the 4 “M’s”; (Materials, Methods,

Manpower and Machinery). Using this technique he can then breakdown all the causes

associated with each of the “M’s”. Looking at the data in Table 4, he can quickly place

each possible deficiency with the appropriate root cause.

1. Incorrect measurement 9. Variability

2. Antiquated scales 10. Equipment in disrepair

3. Lack of clear instructions 11. Technician calculation off

4. Damaged raw material 12. Jars mislabeled

5. Operator misreads display 13. Temperature controls off

6. Inadequate cleanup 14. Incorrect weights

7. Inadequate maintenance 15. Priority miscommunication

8. Inadequate flow controls 16. Inadequate instructions

Table 4 –Dulski’s Jam Deficiency Causes

By simply looking at the chart Richard can see that the issues will become much more

apparent in the diagram and fixing the problems will be much easier, especially if

everyone involved in the process is aware of the areas that need attention. Richard has

categorized the issues in Table 4 and placed them into the Fishbone diagram in Figure 5.

Now that everything has been laid down in place, Richard can study and prioritize the

necessary steps to resolve the issues. For most people, they would start out fixing the

smallest or least amount of deficiencies and work up. Richard has decided to work out

the big problems first and work his way down.

Starting with the biggest section of faults, Richard decided to tackle the problems which

lay with the machinery. The best solution is to pin responsibility to one person in charge

of operating and maintaining the machines required to produce the jam, all can be

controlled through proper operating procedures with the exception of antiquated scales

which Richard has decided to upgrade to more modern scales.

The next area to concentrate on is manpower, which is mostly generated by human error.

All of this can be corrected by providing or reinforcing the standard operating procedures

to include both scheduled and unscheduled observations which will in turn produce some

Quality Management

4/18/2013 8

Richard Dulski’s Jam

on the spot corrections. This will be Richards’s responsibility as he has already assigned

a quality manager in charge of machinery.

Figure 5 –Richard Dulski’s Fishbone Diagram

Now that two areas are being looked at and managed, the other two are relatively small

but just as important as any other part in the process, with the materials and methods go

hand in hand; Richard has decided to put one person in charge of both.

Giving responsibility to specific areas in the jam making process will no doubt give the

employees a sense of empowerment and the end result should see a dramatic change,

while giving positive training and reinforcement should pull all the other employees in as

an extended family working environment.

Page: 1

April 16, 2013 Richard Dulski’s Jam

Bad Mamma Jamma

Materials

Manpower

Methods

Machinery

Incorrect Measurement

Lack of clear instructions

Operator Misread Display

Inadequate cleanup

Inadequate maintenance

Incorrect weights

Equipment in disrepair

Inadequate instructions

Damaged Raw Material

Jars MislabeledVariability

Technician Calc. Off

Human

Error

Inadequate Flow Control

Temperature Control Off

Mechanical

Defect

Priority miscommunication

Antiquated scales

Provisions

Mishaps

Mistakes in

Approach

Quality Management

4/18/2013 9

Self-Serve Station

While in the Army, I was stationed in Korea back in 1990, and the Korean Augmentation

to the U.S. Army (KATUSA) enabled me to become good friends with Corporal Jung

Lee. To this day we still stay in touch through social media and e-mail. He has always

dreamed of coming to the United States but knows he will never be afforded the

opportunity, so with that said; he will always hit me up on pictures where I have visited.

On one of my last trips to a Colt’s football game Jung noticed in one photograph there

was a huge gas station, and his thoughts were quite different than mine when looking at

the picture, to me it was just a gas station, to Jung he was wondering where all the fuel

attendants were.

After thinking back at my many times in Korea it started to make sense, I have never seen

a self-serve gas station my entire time there. Jung did not understand how we got fuel,

who we paid for the fuel, this whole scheme of maneuver was absolutely fascinating to

him, soon, more and more questions were coming to Jung, mostly how to get fuel, he

soon forgot about the absent attendants.

I first started to explain to him the whole process, but as good as his English is, there is

still a language barrier, this is when I decided to draw the process out for him and

drawing it in a flowchart seemed to be the logical thing to put him at ease.

In Figure 7, you will see the flowchart I have drawn for Jung, this seemed to work out

pretty good since he has quite asking about how to fuel a vehicle here in America.

The diagram consists of only four basic shapes, an oval box, directional arrows, process

box and a decision icon. The oval circle in the diagram will be the start point and the end

point, therefore there will only be two instances of this.

The process box is a point of action, such a remove fuel gas, or replace fuel cap, the

occurrences of the process box can be quite numerous, so to help keep a flowchart from

becoming two or more pages, some of the simple tasks that can be done in conjunction

may be place inside one of the process boxes; such as remove fuel cap and remove fuel

nozzle.

The decision icon is when a specific decision needs to be made, before the next process

or action can take place such as pay by credit or prepay with cash. Figure 6 shows the

diagram icons and what they represent.

Quality Management

4/18/2013 10

Self-Serve Station

Figure 6 –Icon Description for Flow Chart

Below is the fully drawn flow chart for fueling a vehicle at a self-serve gas station.

StartPull car up to service fuel

pump

Stop car, shut off engine, get out of

vehicle

Ppayment method

Press button of desired octane

level

Remove vehicle fuel

cap

Walk into store for prepayment

Walk back to car for fueling

process, remove fuel cap

Press payment method

Payment method

Place fuel nozzle into

fuel tank

If fuel stops pumping

Continue to pump fuel

Remove fuel nozzle ,

replace fuel cap

Decide if reciept is needed

Press yes for reciept or no if

reciept not needed

End

CashCredit

Look at price of gasoline

Self-Serve Fuel Station

Figure 7 –Self-Serve Station Flow Chart

Follows each step in sequence

Start / End Point

Process or Action Required

Point when a decision needs to be made

Quality Management

4/18/2013 11

Summary

Flow charts, Pareto charts, Fishbone diagrams and scatter charts are all different with at

least one exception, and that exception is to identify a problem to make the resolution

easier to fix.

The Pareto chart is designed to show the biggest problem first to allow the manager to

prioritize their work. Correcting the biggest issue first will make tackling the smaller

issues a better transition, not only for management, but for all the new changes effect. In

any industry, not everyone will embrace changes, but getting over the biggest obstacle

will make everyone involved more comfortable in the end.

With Dulski’s jam problem, the Fishbone diagram only shows the relationships between

the root causes which have a significant effect on the end product. A good manager will

know how to capitalize on the issues, and in Richard’s case, he empowered certain

personnel to take responsibility of specific areas to fix the problem as a whole.

Theresa Shotwell already knew the problem, but only with the scatter chart was she able

to see that the numerous trips to the kitchen per customer was in turn effecting the time

the meal arrived to the table as well. Theresa could also predict for future shifts, waiter

personnel, and the number of customers when she needs to become more involved

without showing a lack of confidence in her employees.

There are many ways to draw a flowchart and for many reasons, in my case it was to get

over a language barrier to explain to a friend overseas just how Americans get fuel for

our vehicles. I could have easily number each box with a description of what each

number represented, but I needed my friend to concentrate on the process itself instead of

jumping back to a legend to see what (3) is, this method seemed to work extremely well

for him.

Bottom line is the charts and diagrams in the previous pages are tools for managers to

identify, correct, and manage for the wanted end result, a good quality product with as

few as little deficiencies possible.