Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 9th Edition by James Evans,William Lindsay

Exercise 4

A. Blanton Godfrey notes that many organizations are "wired for failure"; that is, their processes are not designed effectively or aligned with each other. 59 He cites several examples. One is overscheduling at airports. During the 4:15 to 4:30 P.M. time slot, 35 arrivals are scheduled in Atlanta, even though in optimal weather conditions the airport can handle only 25 in 15 minutes; with bad weather, this number drops to 17. Another company celebrated its largest sales contract in history only to discover that all qualified suppliers for critical materials were at capacity. A third example is the unwillingness of departments to work together. When products fail in the plant or in service, it isn't because designers choose components they know will fail; they often have insufficient information about the problems that result from their choices. Such problems can be mitigated by good process management. Discuss his observations and cite examples of your own to illustrate each of the three issues.