Kray Co.manufactures high quality knives for use in the meat processing industry,and operates in an industry which values and rewards consistent production quality.Technical innovation over the past decade has given the industry a good supply of high quality steel in raw material form.Kray Co.recognizes the need to establish and maintain strong quality controls for labor activities.A company quality team has asked you to assist the company with a recommendation to the firm,choosing either a goalpost conformance quality plan or an absolute quality conformance plan to monitor its manufacturing activities.
Required:
(1)Briefly distinguish between the two approaches to ensuring conformance with production standards.
(2)Explain how the Taguchi Quality Loss Function operates within the absolute quality conformance plan.(3)Do you think worker reaction to the two plans in Part (a)above might be different? Why or why not?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Feedback: (1)Goalpost conformance to a quality specification is expressed as a specified range around the target,the ideal value to be obtained.Goalpost conformance assumes that the firm incurs no quality or failure cost or loss if quality measures fall within the specified limits.In contrast,absolute quality conformance requires that all products or services meet exactly the target value with no variation allowed.
(2)The Taguchi Quality Loss Function relates total loss to a firm of quality defects.The loss grows larger as the variation increases.As a quadratic function,doubling the deviation from a target value quadruples the loss.(Example: Deviation of 0.1 results in $4 loss;deviation of 0.2 results in $16 loss. )
(3)The absolute conformance approach is better for achieving long-term profitability and customer satisfaction goals.Both approaches (absolute conformance and goalpost conformance)must be developed and implemented with great care to assure each fits its specified setting and is understood by workers whose efforts are evaluated by it.The term "absolute" might evoke negative reactions from workers,and would require explanation.

Kray CoManufactures High Quality Knives for Use in the Meat Processing