PART 1 The PDCA cycle is widely applicable. To make sure we all understand it, let’s try applying it to our daily lives. We may be doing that already, but just don’t know it. Consider a guy who’s trying to lose weight. He Plans to eliminate 200 calories per day by switching from donuts to bagels. He Does that. He Checks his weight every day, expecting to lose one pound per month. It doesn’t work, so he Acts to find another way to cut calories. Can you come up with something similar? Something you’ve done, or you’re doing now, or you ought to do? Explain. (No more than 2 paragraphs)
PART 2
Logistical Quality Control Please refer to the Case 1 description of the hypothetical grocery delivery company.
Let’s suppose the company has Taken Off, and is now a Big Deal in Silicon Valley. Thousands of otherworldly, overpaid people, many of whom could either find the time to go shopping themselves, or delegate the task to their PAs, have come to rely upon MyShoppingCart.com for groceries – and not just at 3:00 AM on Sunday morning.
The company’s success has been due to its clean, beautifully intuitive shopping app, which works flawlessly on every device, and also to its awesomely fast delivery service. In one instance, which has become the stuff of local legend, a millionaire’s trophy wife was horrified to discover that she was completely out of cocktail onions, and a party she was hosting was beginning in a half hour. She placed an order on her cellphone, and a motorcycle courier from MyShoppingCart had the onions in her hand in 17 minutes flat. (That $1.75 jar of onions did, of course, cost her $50, charged to her American Express card, but she didn’t notice.)
But now the company has encountered a problem -- the warehouse. There are bottlenecks: it’s taking too long for items to get from the receiving side of the shipping dock to the shelves. It’s taking too long to pick an order from the shelves and get it out the door, in either a car trunk or motorcycle saddlebags. There’s no minimum acceptable time for either activity; the emphasis is always on making things faster.
Obviously, it’s impossible to know the particulars of what’s going on. But how would you find out? Once you know, what sort of program would you put into place, to make things better? In particular: 1.How would you go about benchmarking the warehouse’s performance? 2.How would you collect data concerning the details of warehouse performance? 3.How would you apply the PDCA process to improving performance?
Your discussion should be solidly grounded in the background materials, and supported by citations and references.
Required Sources
ASQ (2014). Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. Retrieved on 13 Jan 2015* from http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdca-cycle.html
Moen, R. & Norman, C. (n.d.) Evolution of PDCA cycle. Retrieved on 13 Jan 2015* from http://pkpinc.com/files/NA01MoenNormanFullpaper.pdf
Murray, M. (2015c). Total quality management (TQM). Retrieved on 13 Jan 2015* from http://logistics.about.com/od/qualityinthesupplychain/a/TQM.htm
Murray, M. (2015d). Benchmarking in the supply chain. Retrieved on 13 Jan 2015* from http://logistics.about.com/od/qualityinthesupplychain/a/benchmarking.htm
Murray, M. (2015e). Continuous Improvement Tools. Retrieved on 13 Jan 2015* from http://logistics.about.com/od/qualityinthesupplychain/a/Continuous-Improvement-Tools.htm
