Assignment Task: You have just been hired as an intern by a local farm. It is a family business with approximately 100 employees. Their primary product is grapes. The good news is, about 90% of the annual harvest goes to four major companies that produce various products (i.e., wineries and jelly manufactories). The remaining 10% of the product has traditionally been sold at local events such as farmers markets.
As a soon-to-be college graduate, you are expected to be in charge of the quality improvement program. You will need to start the process of designing a quality program using your training. Unfortunately, you have little to no experience with either farming or the grape market. However, the owners think you will be perfect for this project since you can provide an outside view to identify any problems or opportunities.
At this point of the course this opportunity may seem overwhelming, but you can take steps to begin the process with the materials to this point to get started. The owners recognize that this is a multi-month process and are interested in hearing your ideas on getting started.
Question 1: Based on Demings's works, where should your focus be?
Question 2: How can you explain to the owners why this project should be beneficial given your salary and the efforts of others in the company using Crosby's concepts?
Question 3: Who would be some of the "right" people to form into Quality Circles within the company?
Question 4: Finally, you have two major markets (large companies/manufacturers and individual customers/farmers markets).
Question 5: Determine what would be the customer requirements for each of these two groups and weight them in importance as a starting point for a future QFD House of Quality model.