Quality Control in Operations and Supply Chain Management

Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) involves a complex network of systems and equipment that must work in harmony to create and deliver the services and products offered by a business. Your review of specific areas of OSCM in this course, including quality management and component sourcing, should enable you to synthesize and evaluate the factors influencing a situation that has impacted consumers in a negative way. While a failed product can cost the company millions or more in lost revenue, lawsuits, and fines, the long-term effect of public opinion can be more damaging.

This week draws from all the other weeks’ reading and assignments. How can processes be optimized to improve quality? What quality methods could be used to further increase quality? You will also ask questions about what was done when things went wrong. It is inevitable that mistakes will happen. Poor designs can cause a product to not function as intended even though the product was built to specs.

This week, you will review a case where something has gone wrong with a product and analyze how the company handled the situation as well as present preventative measures to reduce future quality concerns. To prevent a reoccurrence, companies must honestly evaluate what went wrong, when it went wrong, and explore ways to prevent it from happening in the future. Additionally, companies must critique how they handled the problem. Did they immediately recall the product? Did they ignore it? Did they fail to communicate the issue to their customers and other stakeholders?

As a business analyst skilled in the area of operational excellence, you are hired by a company to compile a detailed case study analysis of a quality control product failure that resulted in a significant public relations disaster for a company. For this assignment, choose a company that had a catastrophic product failure that resulted in a public relations nightmare for the company due to product failure seriousness, poor response, and insufficient communication. You will analyze what went wrong with the product, the success, and failures of the company’s response, and then you will suggest a detailed plan to ensure limit future breaches in quality, as well as suggest a plan to address any future quality issues in a positive way.

Your audience for this presentation will be the board of directors, which includes, for purposes of this assignment, those responsible for investigating, launching, and managing product recalls. Your presentation should include the following:

A List of key, relevant issues related to the product recall, including, near-term and long-term negative impact.
Discussion of findings related to current or past service/ recall practices leading to the current situation.
The company’s response to the product failure (e.g., delayed recall, insufficient response, lack of communication).
Recommendation for leveraging Information Technology personnel and resources to improve the recall process.
Recommendations for improving operations and supply chain management independent of IT operations using a quality management system, such as Six Sigma or another system. Be sure to introduce the system to the board and explain how it might prevent future issues.
Timeline for completing the next steps toward an improved recall process.
Length:

10-15 pages (excluding the cover sheet, title page, and references) giving a complete analysis of the issue, failures, and how to incorporate quality systems to ensure recalls becoming less necessary. Ensure you cover what to do should a quality issue get into the market.

References:

Include a minimum of 10 scholarly resources within the last 5 years on quality management, past recall failures and successes, recall planning. The majority should be from peer-reviewed journals.