1. Quality is very important for the market segment of this company.
Is the
quality model and philosophy of this company strong enough to be competitive
during the next years?
Yes it is, because they have a quality control after each step they do to
assembly the guitar, so they are sure the entire guitars they produce have 0
defects.
2. Do you think that Santa Cruz Company was following TQM without noticing?
Could you provide some evidence?
Yes, because every worker does a little inspection before they send the
subassembly to the next station, without knowing what TQM was.
Evidence: These are Deming’s 14 points
1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize
total cost by working with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and
service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for
management.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the
annual rating or merit system.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for
everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.
The article said that the company already applies almost all of these points without
knowing about Deming´s method and TQM.
3. Some members of this group believe that the company shall invest in robots
and automatic machinery in order to increase production volume. What will be
your recommendation?
It depends on the demand, because if the market does not demand more
guitars than they can make manually, and they buy machines and robots to
produce them, the money will be spent for nothing because it is not necessary;
if the market demands a lot more guitars than they can produce manually, then
I would say it is a good plan to invest on machines and robots to increase the
production volume, so they can cover a highly demand and the company will
grow.
4. Do you think company management has improved since the owner became
aware of all the Deming’s steps? or is it running the same way? Explain your
answer.
Yes, because if you apply Deming´s 14 points, the company will be always
improving not only in the process but in administration, management, sells, etc.,
this is called continuous improvement.
5. From the video and article provided, briefly describe (limit to 1 page) to the
investors your overall opinion about this company and if you believe that it
could be a good investment.
Santa Cruz Guitars Company is a small company that produces about 800
guitars per year in a batch and handmade production. They have six stations
and they follow seven steps to assembly a guitar.
1. Selecting and Drying the wood
2. Rough cutting the wood
3. Bending the sides
4. Cutting the top and back
5. Cutting the neck
6. Applying the finish
7. Completing final assembly and setup
The guitars go through all this steps and every worker does not send the guitar to
the next stations until they are satisfied or they are sure that their work has no
defects (this is kind of a quality inspection per station).
I would say this is a very good company and would highly recommend everyone to
invest on Santa Cruz Company because they produce a high quality product and
they focus a lot on people who likes working in teams, and we all know that two
minds are better than one. This company cares about their worker, this a very
important factor to reduce turnover in workers, you should keep people feeling part
of the company so they are happy working at it. If the company keeps workers for a
long time, it means you have experienced workers and therefore they do a better
job, this means higher quality on your product and less waste in the process. And
this is what Santa Cruz Company does.
Another strength of the company is that the product is handmade and this let you
make more easily custom guitars. There is a lot of people who wants their guitars
with some customizations, and this could be a new market for the company.
References
1. Quality is very important for the market segment of this company. Is the
quality model and philosophy of this company strong enough to be competitive
during the next years?
Yes, I believe it’s strong enough because the customer satisfaction is a very
important aspect of their company and I quote what they said: “The Company
seems to have an innate understanding that superior customer service means
really listening to and totally committing to customers”. I believe that this kind of
customer service means that they are not also wanting to deliver quality products
but to make the customer feel a different experience when acquiring a product.
2. Do you think that Santa Cruz Company was following TQM without noticing?
Could you provide some evidence?
Yes, even though they doesn’t have a quality department or they don’t follow any
rules, norms or specifications, they care about quality. They divided de production
in seven different steps in which there’s an expert (luthier) that carefully does the
specific part for the guitar and they doesn’t allow the part to advance to the next
area until it’s been checked and approved by them.
3. Some members of this group believe that the company shall invest in robots
and automatic machinery in order to increase production volume. What will be
your recommendation?
No, my recommendation is that they should stay the way they are, because of
several points; when your production process is fully customized (handmade) or in
batch production, there are aspects that conserve the quality of the products, for
example, there’s only one process in the production of the guitars in which they
use a CNC machine, all the other areas are handmade and when you automatize
a process that before was handmade, I believe the production will decrease. And
the other point is that if they doesn’t have enough demand, I think I won’t be
necessary to invest in automatic machinery
4. Do you think company management has improved since the owner became
aware of all the Deming’s steps? Or is it running the same way? Explain your
answer:
I think the company management improved, because they had some quality
standards that they thought were good for the production of their guitars, but when
they became aware that all those standards already had a name (Deming´s Steps)
and applications in other manufacturing companies, they will apply them with more
meticulousness
5. From the video and article provided, briefly describe (limit to 1 page) to the
investors your overall opinion about this company and if you believe that it
could be a good investment.
I believe that investing in the Santa Cruz Guitar Company is good, because they
have good quality standards in the making of their products, they also care about
aspects in the selling of their products like the customer service as I mentioned
before. They use special materials to manufacture the guitars. One of the aspects
that got my attention is that they are on continuous improvement of their products,
they are working in the accomplishment of the tone, the document says: As the
luthier shaves off ribbons of wood from the top and braces, he will tap the top to
hear the tone that results from each series of shavings until the tone is perfect
(known as voicing the top) but since the true sound of instruments will not be fully
realized until they are assembled, the luthiers write down what they did while
building the top. After final assembly, if a guitar produces a sound so special, the
luthier who built the top will immediately be notified and asked to check his notes
to see how this was accomplished so the sound can be duplicated in the future, I
think that there’s a lot of guitar manufacturers that skip this part
Situation
Richard Hoover is planning to retire. You are contacted by a group who is
interested in buying the company. You are required to answer the following
questions:
1. Quality is very important for the market segment of this company. Is the quality
model and philosophy of this company strong enough to be competitive during the
next years?
In fact, quality is the principal characteristhic for any product in industry. I consider
that quality control are aceptable because they know that if customers are happy,
means that customer service are good and enought to maintein a competitive
market their guitars.
2. Do you think that Santa Cruz Company was following TQM without noticing?
Could you provide some evidence?
Santa Cruz Company wasn’t follow TQM because they didn’t even know it, they
was following Deming’s steps that are 14 (This is the evidence). Is important to say
that although they don’t have quality department they really care about quality.
3. Some members of this group believe that the company shall invest in robots and
automatic machinery in order to increase production volume. What will be your
recommendation?
We are living a world’s change and the automatization is one of that, but in this
case the principal characteristhic in the production process are the handmade, so, I
think is not the best option to have automatic machine for the way to make guitars
and because the demand is variable.
4. Do you think company management has improved since the owner became
aware of all the Deming’s steps? or is it running the same way? Explain your
answer.
The company management definitely has improve because they knew about
quality standards but always are a better way to applied it, Santa Cruz Company
now have a method that he had knowledge but with a extra benefits.
5. From the video and article provided, briefly describe (limit to 1 page) to the
investors your overall opinion about this company and if you believe that it could be
a good investment.
Santa Cruz company is a good idea to invest, because although they hadn’t all
knowledge about some items, they are worried about quality and market, they
consider the customer satisfaction provides for a good service.
The continuos improvement is one of the big deals of the company. The handmade
of the guitar includes since raw materials to final production and this is the plus of
company.
Salma Mendoza Jimenez
A01271718
1. Quality is very important for the market segment of this company. Is
the quality model and philosophy of this company strong enough to be
competitive during the next years?
Yes, because nowadays handmade products are more valued than in previous
decades when mass production was born. Today, artisanal manufacturing gives
products a great added value that people is willing to pay. So this company’s
model has a great market to keep working with in next years.
[Link]
[Link] [Accessed 28 Feb. 2020].
2. Do you think that Santa Cruz Company was following TQM without
noticing? Could you provide some evidence?
Yes, by having 3 “levels” of quality supervision: the luthier that crafted the piece,
the experienced luthiers and finally the senior luthier. Also the piece doesn’t move
forward until the three of them agree about the product accomplishing the quality
standards.
Barone, A. (2020). How Total Quality Management (TQM) Works. [online]
Investopedia. Available at: [Link]
[Link] [Accessed 29 Feb. 2020].
3. Some members of this group believe that the company shall invest in
robots and automatic machinery in order to increase production volume.
What will be your recommendation?
If they have evaluated and proved that CNC is the unique machine they actually
need, there is no need of investing on higher technology, because of two reasons:
the handmade process it’s one of their main attractions and because also having
more advanced tools than what is required, it’s considered a waste on Shingo’s 7
types of waste scale.
El-Namrouty, K. (2013). Seven Wastes Elimination Targeted by Lean
Manufacturing Case Study ″Gaza Strip Manufacturing Firms″. International Journal
of Economics, Finance and Management Sciences, 1(2), p.13.
4. Do you think company management has improved since the owner
became aware of all the Deming’s steps? or is it running the same way?
Explain your answer.
It can be improved because now he can improve his process’ activities consciously
and also he can find out better ways to perform them. He can find and work on new
opportunity areas.
[Link]. (2020). Deming's 14 Points: Total Quality Management Principles | ASQ.
[online] Available at: [Link]
management/deming-points [Accessed 29 Feb. 2020].
5. From the video and article provided, briefly describe (limit to 1 page) to
the investors your overall opinion about this company and if you believe
that it could be a good investment.
This can be a great investment opportunity because of the market the company is
focusing on. This market it’s an emerging tendency that bases value on costumed
and hand made products with high quality standards. The kind of customers that
belong to this market, are willing to pay for unique products made with the special
requirements they ask for to the manufacturer as a new way to buy “exclusive”
pieces.
A good way to take this company to a new level of business, it’s by stablishing new
workshops with luthiers of different specialties on new states and also countries.
This investment will allow us to attend different customers and their needs, by
producing new kinds of instruments with the same production method and quality
standards.
This is the moment to invest on specialized handcrafting business, taking
advantage of the growing tendency of costumed products, competing closely to
mass production systems.
Puente Riofrio, M., & Andrade Dominguez, F. (2016). Relación entre la
diversificación de productos y la rentabilidad empresarial.
Laura Lizbeth Cepeda Sánchez- A01381916
Richard Hoover is planning to retire. You are contacted by a group who is
interested in buying the company. You are required to answer the following
questions:
1. Quality is very important for the market segment of this company. Is the
quality model and philosophy of this company strong enough to be competitive
during the next years?
Yes, I believe its strong enough because they have quality control after each step
of the assembly of the guitar. This in order to have 0 defects in their product.
2. Do you think that Santa Cruz Company was following TQM without noticing?
Could you provide some evidence?
Yes, they don’t have a quality department, norms or specifications but they care a
lot of about quality. They divided the production in seven different steps in which
there’s an expert that does the specific part for the guitar. They apply the Demings
steps without knowing the Deming´s method and TQM
Evidence: The Deming´s steps.
1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize
total cost by working with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and
service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for
management.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the
annual rating or merit system.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for
everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.
3. Some members of this group believe that the company shall invest in robots
and automatic machinery in order to increase production volume. What will be
your recommendation?
My recommendation is to don’t invest in robots and they stay the way that they are
working because the production depends on the demand and if they buy robots to
produce and the demand is low it will not generate profits.
4. Do you think company management has improved since the owner became
aware of all the Deming’s steps? or is it running the same way? Explain your
answer.
The company management has improved because the quality standards that they
have in order to have a good product but now that they know the method they will
used in more effective way.
5. From the video and article provided, briefly describe (limit to 1 page) to the
investors your overall opinion about this company and if you believe that it
could be a good investment.
I think that to invest in the Santa Cruz Guitar Company is a great think to do
because that have a good quality standard for their production of guitars also they
focus on the people who enjoy to work in teams. If a company cares about the
people that work there it and this makes a good impression of the company
because they want that the employees likes the job and want to stay and this
makes that in the future the employees will have more experience.
