Question

1)    A manufacturer is experiencing problems due to late delivery of parts from one of its suppliers. Use an appropriate quality tool to analyze the possible causes of the late delivery.

2)    Explain the 80-20 (aka Pareto law). What are some of the applications of the rule?

3)    Use the dimensions of quality to describe the typical characteristics of a television set.

Answer 1

An appropriate quality tool to analyze the possible causes of the late delivery is :-

Step 1: Identify the Problem.

The first thing that you need to do is to identify the problem you want to analyze. The good starting point is to start with a description of the situation, consequences for your business, possible reasons, responsible departments, etc.

Step 2: Identify the Main Causes of the Problem.

In this case, the problem is the effect of some causes, and therefore, the second step must identify all possible reasons for this situation.

When it comes to business problems, it is best to start with subjects or business elements that can be the cause of this problem. These elements can be people, procedures, materials, skills, systems, equipment, etc.

The task of this step is to brainstorm as many as possible potential reasons for the problem.

Step 3: Identify all Possible Sub-causes in Each Main Cause.

Since you already have the main reasons, then each of these causes is the result of more sub-causes. If you ask why for each primary cause, you will have many answers that can merely become sub-causes. For example, if one of the main reasons for late delivery is the production process, we can have possible sub-causes as following:

Long preparation time,

Not optimized layout in the plant,

Wrong norms,

Too many errors in the production process,

Wrong planning, etc.

For each of these reasons, there will be probably additional reasons that you will need to break down into the diagram. For example, if you make errors in the production process, possible reasons can be:

Employee training,

Received raw materials are with low quality,

There are mistakes in the maintenance of technological equipment.

Step 4: Analyze Diagram.

Once you finish the previous step, you will already have a complete diagram that shows all possible causes of the problem. This way will allow you to identify more than one reason. In business, only one cause for a problem is not the usual case. The problems are complex and require more complex solutions.

Therefore, in this step, you will need to analyze the diagram. The analysis will require detailed consideration of each cause by recording the state of the field, conversations with responsible people, interviewing, meetings, etc.

The purpose of the analysis is to prepare a project with specific steps to solve the problem and eliminate all possible causes, so they will not occur in the future.

2. Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything in Time and Life Management. ... The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895.

To apply the 80-20 rule, Carla decided to assign her "80%" to all that went into creating the blog, including its content; and as her "20%," she designated the blog's visitors.

Using web analytics, Carla focused closely on the blog's traffic. She asked:

Which sources comprise the top 20% of traffic to my blog?

Who are the top 20% of my audience that I wish to reach?

What are the characteristics of this audience as a group?

Can I afford to invest more money and effort into satisfying my top-20% readers?

In terms of content, which blog posts constitute the top 20% of my best-performing topics?

Can I improve upon those topics, and get even more traction from my content than I'm getting now?

Carla analyzed these questions and edited her blog accordingly:

She adjusted the blog's design and persona to align with those of her top-20% target audience.

She rewrote some content to meet her target reader's needs more fully.

Although her analysis did confirm that the blog's biggest problem was its marketing, Carla did not ignore its content. She remembered the common fallacy cited in the article—if 20% of inputs are most important, then the other 80% must be unimportant—and did not want to make that mistake.

3.A television set - Performance, Aesthetics, Special features, Conformance, Reliability, Durability, Perceived quality, and Serviceability.