Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 10th Edition by James Evans ,William Lindsay

Exercise 26

Note: Data sets for many problems in this chapter are available in the Excel workbook C09Data.xlsx on the Student Companion Site. Click the appropriate worksheet tab as noted in the problem ( e.g. Prob. 9-12, etc.) to access the data. We also recommend using the ASQ Learn about Quality Excel templates noted in this chapter to facilitate your solutions to appropriate problems.
Placewrite, Inc., an independent outplacement service, helps unemployed executives find jobs. One of the major activities of the service is pre paring resumes. Three word processors work at the service typing resumes and cover letters. Together they handle about 120 individual clients.
Turnaround time for typing is expected to be 24 hours. The word-processing operation begins with clients placing work in the assigned word processor's bin. When the word processor picks up the work (in batches), it is logged in using a time clock stamp, and the work is typed and printed. After the batch is completed, the word processor returns the work to the clients' bin, logs in the time delivered, and picks up new work. A supervisor tries to balance the workload for the three word processors. Lately, many of the clients have been complaining about errors in their documents-misspellings, missing lines, wrong formatting, and so on. The supervisor has told the word processors to be more careful, but the errors still persist.
a. Develop a cause-and-effect diagram that might clarify the source of errors.
b. What tools might the supervisor use to study ways to reduce the number of errors?