Degreasing Solutions Quality Ineffectiveness – SWOT Analysis And Alternatives

Issue:

Discuss about the Quality Management and Operational Excellence.

The main issue that is affecting the company of Degreasing Solutions is the quality ineffectiveness of the produced product, namely Grease-Away that is having a high pressure in the cans due to which, eight cartons were rejected by the inspector who inspected them as samples. This has been hampering the entire company not only because of the reputation that would be at stake but also because of the rejection of cartons and holding them back from further distribution. The issue of the ineffectiveness in quality management in the business in regard to the grease cans has been costing a lot of money to the company and this is equally posing threat to the users in regard to safety.

Issue:

The main problem in regard to the company is the ineffective quality management that has been observed in the business. However, considering the information that can be accessed from the case study, some of the issues are discussed below-

• The attitude of the people concerned in the business seemed to be very careless. The way people responded with muted smiles and reluctant attitude showed their lack of concern for the production as well as reputation of the business.
• Negligence relating to the business process has been manifested in the company. With the spread of the products that were put on hold, those have reached the customers. However, the people engaged in the market seemed to completely forget about the incident and showed no concern relating the issue (Asif et al., 2013). With this attitude of the workers, it is very difficult for any business to be progressive in future.
• There is no proper training of the chief operator responsible for the filling equipment in the company. He was merely transferred from the shipping role and had no formal training relating to the new job role. He was simply taught to run the equipment and was absent from the situation when the issue stoke the company, which he later came to know after the shift.
• It is also noticed that there is a huge negligence in updating and maintaining the equipments used in the business production. The automated filing equipment that was responsible for the damage was purchased two years ago and used for another product. It began to be used for the product Grease-Away without proper checks and modifications. Thus, the use of machine for products for which it is actually not designed has led to serious consequences damaging the quality that the product must have had.
• Moreover, no tests were done prior operating the machines. Lack of preventative maintenance also caused the dysfunction. Moreover the sensitive filling head of the machine was replaced and repaired by a local machine shop. This shows the lack of responsibility in the workers who must have brought professional and experienced machine experts for such cases. A lack of proper scheduling for the maintenance of 12 work orders in a month also led to the issue.
• The downtime was not standardized and ran 15% of the actual running time. This shows the degrading condition of the machine that contributes to the negative consequence for the company.

Assumptions:

The detailed study of the case of Degreasing Solutions shows that the company has been affected with quality management issues in the present times. Some of the assumptions made in respect to its business situation in this context are as follows-

• The operator of the company who is responsible for the filling equipment has been transferred from his prior role of shipping two weeks ago.
• The person was not given any formal training regarding his new job role and was simply taught to run the equipment. Thus, not just that he lacked experience in the operation of the machine, but the operator had no knowledge about the machine’s operation.
• The automated filling equipment was bought two years ago for a different product which has been put to use for the production of the Grease-Away product. Thus, with no tests, the machine has been used for other job purpose deviating from the initial reason of its purchase for a different product.
• The machine was under continuous maintenance that claimed a regular check of it and needed a replacement of the filling head in every two months that it functioned.
• The maintenance of the machines and their replacements were done in the non-standard local machine shop.
• Non-standard downtime of 15% of the actual running time prevailed in the marketing condition of the company.

Analysis:

SWOT analysis has been done in order to determine the situation of the company reflecting its internal strengths and weaknesses. It also assesses the threats that it has and the various opportunities that it could use up in order to improve the market for its business.

SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths ·       Have a good number of employees who are technically trained. ·       Have a wide range of products for the market. ·       Have the potential to sell out products on short demand. ·       Delivery timings are met.	Weaknesses ·       Non-standard maintenance of equipments. ·       Lack of training for operators. ·       Use of improper equipments. ·       Lack of scheduled practices in company. ·       Negligent and lethargic attitude of people. ·       Irresponsible behavior of workers. ·       Lack of eligible workers in specific job roles.	Threats ·       Low quality products would defame the company. ·       Switch of customers for damaged products. ·       There is always a changing work environment and culture. ·       Reported failures of equipments. ·       Loss of resources and materials for production. ·	Opportunities ·       The company can initiate new policies for the proper working in the internal scenario. ·       It can initiate training programs to increase efficiency. ·       It can have better production with the use of upgraded and new machines. ·       Hiring skilled workers would make the business smooth. ·       Safety procedures and corporate social responsibility of the company must be heightened. This would enable it to increase customer loyalty.

Alternatives:

Some alternatives that the company can adopt has been discussed further-

• With the live inspection of the production batch in the presence of the Operator and the quality inspector, the final batch of products should have been dispatched.
• Use of proper machine in the place of the poorly maintained automated filling machine would have become more productive.
• Training and cross training of the employees would have resolved the problem of unskilled labor activity (Akgün et al., 2014).
• Proper designing of the product would have efficiently improved production.
• Downtime running must be resolved by scheduling maintenance contract on the machinery and other parts involved in the business.
• Regular meetings and daily reports regarding the business proceedings would have improved the quality of production.
• A proper synchronization among the human resources, the management engaged in product designing, in maintenance, manufacturing as well as marketing would have helped the company to deviate from such issues and evolve stronger in the market (Oakland, 2014).

Short Term-

• In order to bring about a short term improvement in the business of the company, Degreasing Solutions must set up programs for weekly job training for the employees. Before the production, they must have meetings that would discuss the design and evaluate it. Industrial experts must be invited and brought into the company to guide and assist the employees and people engaged in the production process on regular intervals.
• The company must also integrate a job procedure manual with the various safety regulations addressed in it. This would keep the employees informed about the processes and help them perform the regular activities.
• The board of directors and company head can organize meetings at least twice a month to hear the various issues that the people engaged in the business processes are facing and thus adopt measured to eradicate such problems and lead them to a resolved way of working (Cascio, 2018).

Long Term-

• Implementation and up gradation of every single step that the company takes would enable it to be more sustainable in the market.
• Working with the greater concern for safety regulations would aid both the company and the workers to perform effortlessly and efficiently.
• Maintenance of contracts for the use of machinery to reduce their dysfunctions would enable the company to provide quality production for the customers (Dale, 2015).
• Working with the objective of social responsibility alongside the motive of profit making would aid the company to survive in the market for a much longer time.

The implementation timeline shows that before the release of the products into the market, the company must provide training for the employees for about 3 months.

For about 6 months, they must guide the employees and the operators to be well aware of the safety procedures to handle the operations in the production.

It must invest time of about 9 months annually to maintain and replace the equipments (if needed). This would increase productivity of the company as a whole.

9 months for the checking and inspection of the production process and the produced products must be done in order to provide quality assurance to the customers.

Throughout the year in all the 12 months, the execution of the operators’ jobs must be initiated in an organized way.

Akgün, A. E., Ince, H., Imamoglu, S. Z., Keskin, H., & Kocoglu, ?. (2014). The mediator role of learning capability and business innovativeness between total quality management and financial performance. International Journal of Production Research, 52(3), 888-901.

Asif, M., Searcy, C., Zutshi, A., & Fisscher, O. A. (2013). An integrated management systems approach to corporate social responsibility. Journal of cleaner production, 56, 7-17.

Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.

Dale, B. (2015). Total quality management. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dale, B. G., & Plunkett, J. J. (2017). Quality costing. Routledge.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Kwon, O., Lee, N., & Shin, B. (2014). Data quality management, data usage experience and acquisition intention of big data analytics. International Journal of Information Management, 34(3), 387-394.

Oakland, J. S. (2014). Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases. Routledge.