This week we focused on Process Performance and Quality in chapter 6 of our textbook. I got a refresher course in some statistics tools and we watched another video about the Starwood line of hotels/resorts. This video explored the goal of The Phoenecian, a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, to achieve six sigma quality in their customer check-in service process, which involves other nested processes such as housecleaning. It is often very costly to establish six sigma quality. A six sigma quality program requires time an commitment. The six sigma quality program was developed by Motorola and adapted by General Electric and others.
The thing that really made tonights class interesting was when my friend, Eduardo Franco leaned over and told me that all he's been dealing with at work this last week revolved around this same subject of quality. They manufacture custom plastic bottles, etc. for shampoo, etc. where he works. The company doesn't have a lot of extra discretionary income to use in applying a six sigma quality program, but they still want to maintain quality in the products they produce, and maintiain customer relationships.
They've been having some bad product come through lately, and there is danger of loosing important customers. The debate at his office is how to resolve the issue in the least costly way. The sampling inspection process is failing them at the moment, but some say it is too costly to do a complete inspection, and it probably is. Some say it is too costly to loose their customers due to bad products. I'm kinda glad I'm not in Eduardo's shoes right now. I don't think I could handle such manufacturing decision making stress.
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