managing quality

Apple – Samsung = What Kind of Quality?

Posted on by f1223nlopez

After hearing this news about a month ago, I decided to post it and get others responses to it.

It seems although they are in a bitter legal battle with each company suing each other, Apple is still doing business with the Korean company Samsung, but for how long? The relationship started because the companies that previously provided the displays for the iPads, weren’t meeting with quality standards and were dropped. These companies included LG and Sharp Inc. Now it seems that because the legal battles that are happening, Samsung will also be dropped. It seems that the new company to step in and win over Apple’s iPad Mini, is Innolux. Innolux already provides Apple with the displays for the big iPad, and iPod Touch, so the change should be easy.

For those of us who have iPhone, we all noticed how the maps changed when Apple and Google parted ways. A lot of us found out that we were driving or walking into the middle of an ocean when we would look for destinations, or the maps wouldn’t fully load correctly, of course now its fixed after a couple of updates. So will another debacle like this happen when they part ways with Samsung? As consumers, we hate it when the quality of a good product continues to decline and there are a lot of Apple consumers who are very happy with the components that Samsung provides to these devices. Not only are they providing the display panels, but they also manufacture the chips for the Apple devices.

The major question that will be looming is will the quality of Apple products start to decline? It’s been said that Apple is dropping Samsung because of the costs that are now being demanded, so will looking for lower costs, lower the quality? I find it natural that Apple would want to drop Samsung because of their legal battles. Why would they want to help and contribute to their competitors? Samsung is stepping up in the technology industry and is becoming a big competitor to Apple and it’s in their best interest to part ways before the blueprints to their best selling devices are found out.

As news of “The Next Big Thing,” the Samsung Galaxy S4 has come out, will it make a splash big enough to make some new converts? I’ve heard some of the new features on the phone and I find them a little bit weird. The biggest one is the ability to wave your hand to switch screens. Just picture yourself waving your hand at your phone and think about how you will look. I’m not knocking it all, I just find it funny. Each phone is targeting different customers, but are always pinned each other for top spot.

Let me know what you guys think about the new move and if it will or will not effect the quality of Apple products. Feel free to chime in on the new S4 as well.

 

http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/156712/apple-said-to-drop-samsung-turn-to-innolux-for-ipad-mini-displays

http://www.neowin.net/news/apple-may-abandon-samsung-for-retina-ipad-mini-displays

 

 

Wrong CEO, Crazy Damages!

Posted on by f1222sghatila

Wrong CEO, Crazy Damages!

Someone might think that a big company might have all the resources and very intelligent people working because they can afford to do so. In addition, those people will make the right decisions to improve the quality of work and increase the profit in the long run. J.C. Penny is one of the big companies that with one critical decision they lost almost a billion dollar. The hired the wrong person, which lead to critical changes that did not work out in the favor of J.C. Penny and increasing their profits. When Ron Johnson was announced as the new CEO of J.C. Penny the stock prices was $34 and within 2 years, the current stock price is at $14. The reason behind such a dramatic change is the structure of J.C. Penny. The CEO made changes to update the entire store and eliminate the coupons. Johnson did not pivot the idea that start off small and once people accepted the change and wanted that change increase though out the nation. Johnson took a big leap and caused J.C.Penny’s regular customers to look elsewhere for their purchasing needs.

Myron Ullman who was the CEO before Johnson had agreed to go back to and reverse the changes implemented by Johnon. He has agreed to stay until J.C. Penny has the right CEO. The changes made by Johnson eliminated the middle-market customers, which where their target market. Even though someone might think that updating the store and keeping a low price while eliminating coupon will cause more people to come is not necessarily true. Ideally, any idea sounds good but pivoting the idea is to make changes without losing a lot of money. Ulllman’s plan is to change things back and bring back the lost customers what where their target market but getting someone to come back after they have lost the trust is somewhat hard. Ullman has the niche to fix things, which he has done before and J.C. Penny is counting on him to bring back the people and profit into the stores again. His biggest challenge will be to remind the customers that what J.C. Penny was before and nothing has changed.

Quality of management makes a huge difference in the success of any company. Being in this state and losing a lot of money is very critical for J.C. Penny. If they continue to do so they will soon have to declare bankruptcy and that is a whole other situation. Being in economic crises right now and extreme competition from places like Macy’s and Kohl’s’ it will be hard to J.C. Penny to gain the customers because the rivals are trying to take up as much market has they can of lost customers. J.C. Penny is at a critical position right now; the question now remains whether they will be able to reverse the damage.

Do you think the J.C. Penny will gain its customers back and be able to create profit that they use to?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-11/j-dot-c-dot-penney-rehires-myron-ullman-to-clean-up-ron-johnsons-mess#p1

Getting Better with Age?

Posted on by spr1311dferek

 

While on a trip to Willamette Valley Vineyards in France, I tasted a wine that was aged for ten years, and I found that aged wines have a unique taste than newly produce wine. However, while consuming the wine, my mind started wondering how the end- to -end process flow works, what are the critical process controls, what are the priorities of operation managers, and finally how to manage the inventory.

First, I would like to share how the process flow works. Below is the end-to-end diagram that explains that process.

Many steps need to be completed in order to have an aged bottle of wine. My mind was wondering about all the steps because what I had recently learned in the class about network diagrams. For example, the vineyard, crusher, fermentation, and aging need to be completed first in order to have bottling and packaging operation. To find the critical path analysis, it is important to know how long it will take to complete each activity. In addition, it depends about the variety of grape, what kind of wine we need to produce and how long it needs to be aged before the final activity occurs. For example, with most Merlots, it could be aged between 2-12 years.

There are important critical process controls in the operational flow for achieving high quality of wine. Factors, such as crap quality, sorting, fermentation, aging, and filtration process all quality of wine. All these processes are controlled carefully as any deviation can lower the quality of the final product.

In addition, critical areas to focus on the superior customer response time or service are distributor, retail, and tasting rooms as direct sale. These were chosen because wine industries can receive instant feedback from the customers in order to provide exceptional customer service. By getting the customer feedback, wine businesses will be able to respond and react fast enough to correct or solve the issue. Also implementing an information system to streamline and automate data flow for business processes will improve performance and gain access to real time data.

Operation Management is another integral role in the process. Close attention to the areas of labor, equipment, raw material, and inventory must be paid to insure the success of the production operations. Focus on achieving the highest efficiency in production operation is very critical to wineries because of the highly competitive nature of the industry. Inventory control system is another area that requires a lot of attention because a huge stock of inventory needs to be held for aging. The quality of these inventories need to be closely monitored and highly managed in order to generate desired revenue and profit.

What kind of inventory method wineries are using? Is it worth paying more money for aged wine? Is wine getting better with age?

 

http://www.ourtribune.com/article.php?id=15070

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/03/25/what-are-green-wines-sustainable

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/how-winery-domain-chandon-got-smarter-about-customer-habits/22189

 

Starbucks Cuts Prices on Bags of Coffee

Posted on by spr1321jcastiglione

As we discussed in Chapter 2, cost leadership is one of the keys to achieving a competitive advantage over the opposition.  Having the lowest cost, as perceived by the customer, without sacrificing quality, is the key to beating the competition.  Starbucks is attempting to do just that by cutting the price of its bags of coffee by $1 per bag this year.  This reduction in price would make the cost of their bags of coffee comparable to those sold by Folgers, Maxwell House, and Dunkin’ Donuts, all of whom cut their prices this year as well.  Ultimately, Starbucks’ goal is to draw sales away from their competitors, even if they aren’t making as much money per bag of coffee.

The rationale behind the cut in price is to attract a new demographic to purchase their product.  Currently Starbucks’ in-house coffees are among the most expensive, yet they continue to outsell the competition.  By selling their bags of coffee for about the same price as their competitors, they are able to attract the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, as opposed to just the upper end.  Assuming they aren’t sacrificing quality, the Starbucks brand bags of coffee would be the best available option to these consumers.  Overall, they would be reaching a much wider market then their competitors.

In order to earn as much revenue on bags of coffee as they did last year, Starbucks would have to sell 65% more bags at the new price.  Starbucks knows they probably won’t achieve those numbers, but if they continue to steal customers from their competitors, they will eventually reach that number and eventually sell even more.

The move also forces Starbucks’ competitors to make a tough decision.  Either they can keep prices where they are at, or they can continue to cut their prices and trim profits.  Another possibility is that they can cut volume.  Either way, Starbucks walks away a clear winner.  At the rate they are going, Starbucks is slated to run its competitors out of business.

I think this is a great move by Starbucks.  It’s no mystery that a majority of Americans prefer Starbucks coffee to other brands, and by making it more widely available, they can increase their sales exponentially.  Sales won’t increase immediately, but in the long run they most likely will.  Once consumers realize they can get their favorite, high-quality coffee for the same price as lower-quality brands, odds are they’ll opt for the higher quality product.  And even though the profit margins won’t be as high for the bags of coffee, they will still be huge on the in-house brews.  In the end, Starbucks has the highest quality coffee on the market as chosen by consumers, and at its new low price, Starbucks will have the competitive advantage as well.

Source:  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-12/the-game-theory-behind-starbucks-big-coffee-price-cut#r=nav-r-story

Quality And Innovation – The Rat Race!!!

Posted on by f1213araza

The electronics world has changed rapidly in the last few years. Some companies pioneered the changes, while others were too slow to adapt to the fast changing trends and requirements. Not long ago, Japanese companies ruled the market like lions in the jungle. Companies like sharp, Sony, Panasonic and Nintendo were the biggest and unbeatable brands in the entire industry. Now, on the contrary these market kings have lost their market share drastically.

What could be the reason behind their downfall? I have noticed a similar trend in Japanese companies and in someway have the same characteristics. However, these well known companies still follow the highest quality standards and produce highest-quality hardware devices. But the market demand now is not limited to quality only. Japanese companies were slow to catch with competitors with regards to design, operating system and software technology. For instance: Sony was the market king in 1990 when it introduced ‘The Walkman’. At one time, was the ‘must have’ gadget for everyone like the apple iPods currently.  Just in a couple of years Apple managed to shake off and challenge Sony’s position in the market with their IPhones and iPods. Sony’s fell, profits shrunk and once one of the best image in the world is battered.

I believe the major downfall of Japanese brands is due to the fact that they were slow to realize the changing demands and the need to improve software rather than only focus on quality hardware.  From a technological perspective, the explanation of how that happened is straightforward and that apple always was, is very good at software and Sony never was. Sony understood music technology but they were bad at software and they didn’t do what apple did. That is making use of computers and Internet. They created ITunes which made accessing and syncing music to apple devices easily. The Walkman was a success in their era when it did not have to interact with computers.

As discussed in class, acquiring Six Sigma, ISO or other quality certification does not guarantee profits. These methodologies are used to help businesses reduce failures in quality. Talking about Sony, they also had obtained certification under ISO 9001 for all sites manufacturing electronic products yet faced backlash from competing brands. Fast pace dynamic fulfillment of consumer market should be a big factor of management department to maintain the success of a company. Big portion of company’s budget should be allocated for R&D while maintaining the quality of their current successful products.

Do you agree that Sony was too slow to adapt to the fast changing trends?

PS: I think Apple is also slowing down its innovation pace. Watch the video and share your views. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyWSEwKPo8s

Is Apple losing its mojo?

Posted on by f1213nshah

Apple has been at the top of its game for over ten years now. Apple has had great success with its invention and especially with the Iphone. The Iphone was the top selling phone each year that it came out.  Even though it’s been the top selling phone for years, Google’s Android platform is starting to make its way up. According to recent polls and editorials, the Iphone is starting to slip away and more people are starting to prefer Google’s Android platform.

  • The Android platform now accounts for 75% of the smartphone market, which is up from its last quarter’s 68%. Apple’s Iphone dropped from being 17% of the market to 15%. This shows us that people are slowly starting to make the switch from an Iphone to phones with an Android operating system.
  • Apple is known for having loyal customers. Each year there newly innovative Iphone hits the top of consumers’ wish list. It seems like that is starting to change. According to Strategy Analytics 88% of U.S Iphone users said they would stay with the IOS for their next smartphone. That number has dropped from 93% from the previous year. In Europe the numbers dropped from 88% to 75%. This shows that people all around the world are starting to switch from IOS to another operating system.

There must be a reason why Apple fans are starting to slowly switch to Android phones. A big problem that Apple ran into was with the quality of its newest Iphone the Iphone 5. There were many complaints by consumers that there new Iphone 5 came out of the box with scratches or dents. Apple is known for making top quality products, and to produce thousands of Iphone 5 with quality defects is unacceptable. There were reports that this was due to the high demand and that they could not be made in time. It seems like Apple was choosing quantity over quality.

Is Apple starting to lose its touch? Do you think that Apple will be able to recover from the bad rep it got for the quality issues with the Iphone 5?

http://news.yahoo.com/4-signs-iphone-no-longer-smartphone-king-103200005.html

 

 

 

Hold on to your Seats!!! We’re Going Down!!

Posted on by f1213spalreddy

 

 

 

If the airline industry can’t properly maintain the inside of a plane, how can we trust them to take care of the outside of the plane?

 

Recent financial troubles have not been the only source of difficulties for American Airlines.  The airline is now experiencing complications with their seats.  “A Boeing 757 from Boston to Miami carrying 175 passengers diverted to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturday when three seats in row 12 came loose shortly after takeoff.  A second American Boeing 757 returned to JFK on Monday morning after a similar seat issue was discovered” (CNN).  This kind of quality oversight could be the straw the broke the camel’s back for American Airlines.

Initial claims pointed at the saddle clamp “improperly installed on the foot of the row leg” (CNN).  Due to this improper diagnosis, American Airlines inspected a total of 47 Boing 757 Airplanes that were using this type of clamp.  Through this inspection, American Airlines found “that six — including the two involved in the recent diversions — had seats that were not properly secured” (CNN).  It was later discovered that the clamps were not the source of the problem.  Even though this problem was misdiagnosed, it led to a discovery of improper equipment.  Would the faulty equipment been discovered if the problem was diagnosed correctly the first time?   Or did this error lead to a great deal of lost revenue, time, and labor.  These are the types of things that are not in excess for a company dealing with bankruptcy.

The financial implications of mismanaged time and resources are pretty severe for a company with major financial woes.  American Airlines had to ground almost 50 of their Boeing 757 planes.  This is on top of the problem American Airlines is having with their labor force.  American Airlines is in a difficult battle with their pilots union.  The airline suspects that pilots have been filing frivolous reports to cause massive slowdowns.  This slowdown is composed of 12,000 delays and 1000 canceled flights within the month of September.  The question here is whether or not the pilots have been leveraging false safety concerns to improve their union position.  Regardless of the validity of these claims, the airline must address each concern to avoid an even bigger situation.   Being a major airline, American Airlines must deal with problems coming from all directions.  Not only must American Airlines worry about the problems of their own employees, they must also worry about their manufacturers and the partners of their manufacturers.

More and more companies work with various manufacturers to supply them with the parts and pieces required to complete their final product.  It is almost impossible to find a major manufacturer that creates all of the pieces in house that are needed to complete an intricate product.  Many reach out to other manufacturers that specialize in that specific part/piece.  With all of these various pieces, it is very difficult to insure the quality of every one of these different parts.

The seats in question were manufactured by Weber Aircraft.  This Texas based company “manufactured the seats for American’s 757 planes, also made seats for 25 other airlines, including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Air Canada and Korean Air Lines”(Martin 2012).  To prevent future problems and issues, the FAA has essentially demanded that the various airlines rigorously inspect their planes using the 11 Weber seat models.  Over time we have learned that in this global economy it is necessary to make manufacturing partnerships.  However, in this case, it is evident that there is a complete lack of quality management.  How can an industry with so many moving parts avoid situations like this?

 

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/la-fi-mo-faa-recommends-seat-inspections-20121105,0,5493337.story

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/02/travel/american-airlines-problem/index.html

Keeping up With Quality

Posted on by f1212mgarcia

As we discussed in our previous classes, we have discussed that an organization must always continually collect data in order to keep control of their processes. However, how exactly does an organization take control of a process that may need improvement or otherwise a routine check-up? Keeping up with a process that your organization has may be a daunting task due to the fact that the organization already has so many tasks and duties to keep up with. As the article explains, one must “look closely as to how you’re collecting data”. Machine, Part and Shift data are all very important aspects as far as collecting data goes but what exactly do these mean and how are they relevant to your organization?

Machine Data

  • As the article explains, there may be a machine that will be ultimately responsible for quality criteria. Being able to identify where exactly the data came from by identifying the machine is an excellent way of identifying quality errors and could help to finding the problem of quality criteria failures. Instead of giving the whole overall process such as “Line 1”, you can specifically assign the work line from “Line 1” to “Machine 1” and could help to easily identify where exactly a certain product may have come from or where the problem may have came from.

Part Data

  • Part data refers to the manner in which you may collect data. Most people may collect data in “parts” and therefore may not have the biggest organizational picture. As the article explains, one must go in to great detail and must expand their data collection when collecting their “samples” and “parts” of data to more closely represent the organization. A good source of collected data, can be better use for the organization and can help to provide a clearer picture.

Shift Data

  • A human component is always present as the article explains and a manager must be able to take account for the human aspect of any part of their aspect. One manner in which a manager can collect data is by looking at the different shifts and comparing to see how they are doing. Is the earlier shift producing more quality accepted products than the late night shift? If so, what can be done to fix it? etc. A good manager will always make sure to look at the organization at every part and not just as a whole

As we have explained in class, collecting data and being able to use data to better reflect and improve the organization can help to better overall total quality management. It may not be the employees or process that may need a check-up, but rather what is it that the manager can do to fix their process or better yet, what is it that they can do to improve it? How do you feel about having constant quality improvement even when the organization may not need it? Is it necessary to always “fix something that’s not broken”? How can one go in to more detail when collecting data?

http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-article/comparing-quality-levels-between-machines-parts-or-shifts.html

iPad Mini, just one of the newest additions to the Apple familyT

Posted on by f1223npatel

 

The iPad Mini just came out this weekend and as always they had a line waiting outside the door. It is sold for around $329 in stores all around. According to CNET.com, it takes only $188 dollars to manufacture. I found this really interesting because it got me thinking of how much money  they can make off every product. There are differneces between how much it takes to make a 16 gb compared to the 32 gb and 64 gb iPads. It costs another $80 dollars for the iPads with more memory in them. They also sell for $429 for the 32gb and $529 for the 64gb.

The iPad Mini looks great, but is it worth buying is what I have been thinking about. Apple has been known for their superior products and are leading their competitors which is the Google Nexus, Amazon Kindle, and the new Microsoft Surface. I think the product will do very well in today’s market because Apple has a reputation of having great products.  Only Apple has come out with a product of their tablet and making a miniature version of it. I think it is a good idea, but the question is, will it sell to their expectations? They are selling their product over $100 dollars more than their competition, and Apple assumes they can do so because you pay more for quality and a credible name. I believe thats why they are charging a significant amount more than other competitors, but they can do so, don’t you think?

It is unbelievable on how much money Apple is making off of their products. The come out with something new throughout the year every year. They have expanded since they started in ’76 and keep on expanding. The net worth of Apple a decade ago was $10 billion and the net worth as of 2012 is close to $500 billions dollars. It is crazy  to think of all that they have done in the last 10 years. I feel as though Apple is just getting bigger, they have not peaked and are still in their prime. They are going to have many new products coming out, and for now, it is the iPad Mini

Would you guys feel about the iPad Mini? Do you think you will consider buying it at any time? How do you feel about Apple and their expansion into one of the greatest companies in history?

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57544850-37/ipad-mini-costs-at-least-$188-to-build-teardown-reveals/

ISO gives NEI a big WIN

Posted on by f1233amanetas

The NEI company just announced that they achieved the ISO 13485:2003 Medical Device Quality Management System certification for their main facility in Texas. The ISO 13485:2003 is to “facilitate harmonized medical device regulatory requirements for quality management systems, and its requirements are unique to organizations building medical devices”. The company is already ISO 9001:2008 certified.

NEI is a global leader in providing application platforms, development solutions and lifecycle support services for software developers. The article mainly examines the high standards that they set for their medical software devices and services. They play a huge role in IT software service to the healthcare industry all over the world.

In order for NEI to receive this certification, they had to develop and then implement quality management policies for medical devices. The standard for the ISO 13485:2003 requires any company to consistently provide medical devices that meet the customer and the regulatory requirements. In the article, it seemed as though NEI welcomed audits and management evaluations because they work with medical devices. John Gauthier, the director of quality assurance at NEI said, “NEI recognizes the strict parameters and regulatory requirements involved in medical device manufacturing and has developed rigorous practices in support of those metrics”.

The IT standards that NEI sets for the healthcare industry is important. I believe that they should be keeping those standards high because of what industry they are in.  They also seem to take pride in their standard of quality, which must mean that it is excellent. Those medical devices that they create should have high quality because will essentially be used in dealing with people’s lives.  It is said in the article that they intensely listen to their customer base so that they can keep improving and changing with the times. This kind of close attention to detail will benefit NEI in the  future because their customers know that they can count on them to maintain the best quality management.

The link to the article as well as a link to NEI’s website is below:

http://www.onlinetmd.com/nei-certification-medical-devices-102312.aspx

http://nei.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=QUALITY