Deck 13: Purchasing, Inventory, and Quality Control

Question 1

Many times, sales personnel do not practice good selling relations. How would you control the quality of this type of service

Answer 1

Once the people are recruited by a company, it becomes the obligation of the company to take efforts for the professional development of their employees. They keep on motivating them to do their best in the allotted task. The employees should be clearly made known about the company's expectations at the time of hiring process.
It is observed in many cases that sales personnel do not practice good selling relations. The quality of this type of service can be controlled with the help of following points:
• Orientation and training programs should be organized on a timely basis to develop sales skills among the sales personnel.
• They should be asked to have conversations with the clients, direct sales pitches never work.
• They should be asked to add value to the products/services they are selling; this will attract the clients towards product qualities.
• The sessions should be arranged to develop speaking and listening skills of the employees. The main reason behind not setting up good relationship is the inefficiency of the sales personnel to express themselves in an articulated way.
• They should be asked to take customers' feedbacks rather than pressurizing them to buy the products, this will maintain a cordial relation between the two.
Lack of skill set is a common issue observed among sales personnel. Although they try their level best to approach the new customers/clients, they hardly get success due to their wrong ways. It is must to encourage sales personnel to keep themselves updated about new strategies and tactics, this process helps in developing confidence thereby increasing the potential of the employees to make good relations.

Question 2

What is quality How can it be measured How can it be controlled

Answer 2

A product or a service witness increase in sells if it meets up the demands of the customers. To satisfy customer is the ultimate goal of each business. A careless attitude towards customers' feedback troubles the business in the near future. When a business is launched, everything is arranged according to customers' interests.
Quality of a product refers to the characteristics it possesses to meet the set standards. The more the probability of the product to meet the standards, the more good quality it is said to have. The products/services lay more importance on quality rather than pricing and other additional things. Quality is the only characteristic which convinces the buyer to pay a little extra. People who are accustomed to using high quality and standard products do not like to step inside the stores which keep low standard products.
The quality measure of a product differs from person to person. The evaluation standards of people depend upon the products and services they are habitual of using. It is impossible for the small business owners to cater to the needs of all the customers; still they can set their insights and parameters to measure the quality. These parameters can include strength of the product, creativity, durability, and reliability.
Quality can be controlled using following ways:
Setting up standards : The first step towards quality controlling is setting up the standards with reference to some parameters.
Measuring actual performance : The actual performance of the product should be measured based on customers' feedback and products' durability.
Comparing that Performance with the Set Standards : The measured performance should be compared with the established standards to get the probability of the matching standards.
Making Corrections if required : The last step is the measure to check whether the finished product meets the customers' expectations and set standards. If a regular and proper checking procedure is involved in each step, the outcome becomes productive. The corrective measures are applied in this stage.
It can be concluded that the quality can be measured and controlled by adopting simple steps process. The owners should set the standards based on some parameters; the performance should be measured with reference to the set parameters, and rectifying the errors if any.

Question 3

Outline instructions for installing a new quality circle.

Answer 3

Establishing a business is not an easy task, it requires multiple types of efforts to make the business successful. The entrepreneurs set short term goals so that they can achieve long-term goals in a planned and organized way.
New quality circle is installed if a trained team is ready to take the charge of each step involved in the quality circle. The team should comprise of at least 4 to 10 members. It will be better if each step is managed by different individual. The instructions for installing a new quality circle are as follows:
• Problem areas should be identified as a first step.
• From the chosen areas, find the specific problem which is the root cause of the same.
• Analyze the problem and take out its ins and outs.
• Find out the alternatives to improve the problematic area.
• Suggestions along with the chosen alternatives should be presented to the management in a planned way.
• Implement the most suitable alternative.
• Analyze and study the results afterwards.
• Compare the results with the previous results and check whether the improvement is successful.
• To make that change applicable in all the products of the similar segment.
If all the above steps are followed in a systematic order, there are high chances that the quality circle will produce desired results. It should not be forgotten that these circles are especially set up to assure the quality of the product, so no compromise should be made in any of the step involved. All the next steps should be taken after successful completion of the previous step.

Question 4

In Figure 13.2 styles are changed twice a year. What changes would be required with seasonal changes of four or more styles

Question 5

What would you do if you received a large number of customer response forms with comments similar to those in Figure 13.7

Question 6

What effect on your company would the delivery of an increased percentage of defective parts have What would you do about this

Question 7

What options are available to the company

Question 8

What would you do if you faced the same situation

Question 9

Would you buy the product from your competitor to meet the contract Explain.

Question 10

Would you add the additional capacity Explain.

Question 11

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of buying locally versus buying from a distant seller.

Question 12

What are the advantages and disadvantages of shopping at a single store rather than at several

Question 13

A company orders widgets in batches such as 1,000 units. The company uses a constant number each month (say 2,000) in production. Show how the inventory level changes over time between orders. What factors would cause you to change the order size up or down

Question 14

How would you make an economic study to determine the quantity of a food item to buy for your family on each trip to the store How often should purchases be made

Question 15

In some parts of the country, building construction varies seasonally. Is this a problem for company management What decisions must management make concerning these variations