Question

You are in charge of a production line located in the Midwest and the customer service representative from the company you are working for is asking what is up with your line. He has been getting many complaints from Wal-Mart about your product. Wal-Mart says that although your product is lasting as long as your company’s literature says it will for most of their customers, there are certain stores whose customers are bringing the product back because the product did not function as long as it was supposed to. Wal-Mart feels that you are shipping your worst product to these stores because the stores have many more warranty claims against your product than other stores. You ask for the names of the stores that are having problems and note that they are all in hot dry climates. You also know that what product goes to what stores is completely random. Explain to me what you think is going on here. Suggest several ways to take care of the problem.

Answer 1

Some products get affected by the climate and change according to it. They last for a longer time in case of a place with cold/pleasant temperature whereas tend to get damaged when transferred to place with hot climate. There is no way of sending different quality products to different stores as all the products are transferred randomly. If some customers at specific stores are returning with the products and complaining about them, it is necessary to find out why those products are getting damaged before they are actually supposed to. It has been found out that most of the stores that are complaining regarding this issue are based in areas that have hot dry climate. So there could be a relation between their durability and the climate of the place. Research should be done on what is causing the products to get damaged before time and steps should be taken to find a solution for the problem. Considering the main reason to be the hot climate, steps should be taken to determine the solution of the scenario. The team can think of having a substitute for the product that will last for a longer time, even in case of hot climates. Or, the whole product can be redesigned after making the required changes so that it becomes durable during its use in hot climates. The production team should pay special attention on the products that customers are complaining about and in case no solution is found, the supply of the specific product should be stopped for the goodwill of the company as well as maintaining a good relation with Wal-Mart.