Homework answers / question archive / HONORIS UECUNITED UNIVERSITIES SHORT QUESTION (ESSAY / CASE STUDY / EXERCISE) PROGRAMME Bachelor of Commerce in Project Management MODULE Project Quality Management Processes YEAR Two (2) INTAKE January 2021 Semester 1 Read the case study and answer all the questions that follow

HONORIS UECUNITED UNIVERSITIES SHORT QUESTION (ESSAY / CASE STUDY / EXERCISE) PROGRAMME Bachelor of Commerce in Project Management MODULE Project Quality Management Processes YEAR Two (2) INTAKE January 2021 Semester 1 Read the case study and answer all the questions that follow

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HONORIS UECUNITED UNIVERSITIES

SHORT QUESTION (ESSAY / CASE STUDY / EXERCISE)

PROGRAMME Bachelor of Commerce in Project Management

MODULE Project Quality Management Processes

YEAR Two (2)

INTAKE January 2021 Semester 1

Read the case study and answer all the questions that follow.

ROBOTS FAIL TOO

Within the recent month, there have been two sudden robot failures on two different tools during a build cycle. Lisa, the manufacturing engineer, has notified Nick, supplier quality engineer, about the failures, assuming that the two robots have some bad parts. She has requested that the two robots be sent back to the supplier for rework, even though no root cause has been identified. But, it seems that such a move has caused some to question where the blame should be placed.

OUR BUSINESS

The IEM Company is a high - tech company producing customized lon and Electron Microscopes. The applications of their products can be used in a variety of fields, from academia to high - tech industries. Their customers are given the options of customizing the product to meet specific process needs. The company’s financial profile shows that their sales revenue last year exceeds $400 million. The company is currently upgrading their tools for improvement in the imaging and wafer transfer system. This is required to help expand the market size and to meet customers’ satisfaction. This upgrading project was executed and is now in its operational stage.

WE HAVE A PROBLEM AND IT IS NOT OUR FAULT

Nick: How do you know it was the supplier's fault? Is there a chance that we damaged them during handling or installation?

Lisa: According to the Reject report, the technician said that the two robots were working fine for two weeks after installation. But then there were a few error lines such that the wafer transfer was stopped.

Nick: We don't really know if it’s the supplier’s fault or not. If it is their fault, those robots wouldn't have worked for two weeks, would they?

Lisa: True. However, anything is possible. I think we should send these machines back for them to check it out.

Nick: We can't just send them back without a well - documented “potential causes’ report.

Lisa: We don't have time to do any tests or troubleshooting. They have the experts in their company who can test the robots to find out what's wrong with the machines. I suggest we send them back and save ourselves some time.

Nick agreed with Lisa’s suggestion. The two robots were sent back to the supplier for investigation. One week later, similar problems occurred on several other machines. The problem became so big that the issue was elevated to Donnie, a manufacturing engineering manager. Donnie asked Lisa to form a team to identify the root cause of the problem. Lisa agreed to put together the team to brainstorm the root cause and the next course of action. She promised to follow the following steps: goal definition, root cause analysis, counter measures identification, and standardization. Lisa called a meeting with Nick and the other two manufacturing technicians, Joseph and Ryan. The team was working to get a list of possible causes for the problem. As a normal procedure in the team’s analysis, the first thing to do was to create a fishbone diagram

Joseph: As a starting point, can we capture what actually happened before the error message showed up on the screen?

Ryan: I don't really know what happened. I was just starting to teach the robot, following our procedure, but then the error message showed up.

Joseph: That doesn't make any sense. If nothing changed on the system itself, we shouldn't have gotten the error. There's got to be something that changed on the system.

 Lisa: Let's create a fishbone diagram for potential root causes of this problem.

 The team brainstormed using the affinity diagram method. The purpose of this exercise was to ensure everyone's input was captured during the process. They determined the amount of time to be spent on brainstorming, and then went through each idea that each member came up with. When going through each idea, they also decided whether those ideas were candidates for root causes. If any of the ideas didn't make sense, they put them aside and noted them as “possible but not likely” causes. Once the ideas of potential root causes were laid out, they started their fishbone diagram by grouping the potential causes into larger categories such as Software, Mechanical, etc. The fishbone diagram would be used as a tool to communicate with upper management as well as field personnel showing all possible items that needed to be checked if and when the errors occurred again. Case derived from: Case studies in Project, Program, and Organizational Project Management.

QUESTION 1 (30 MARKS)

 

1.1 Are there any noticeable problems relating to the quality management approach implemented at IEM?

Support your answer. (5 Marks)

1.2 Provide suggestions on how organisations similar to IEM can best manage their project quality. (10 Marks)

1.3 Project Quality Management addresses the management of project deliverables of the project; it applies to all projects regardless of the nature of their deliverables. Modern quality management approaches seek to minimize variation and to deliver results that meet defined stakeholder requirements. In light of this statement, outline the main reasons why there has been a growing emphasis among project managers towards managing quality. (10 Marks)

1.4 What are some of the emerging practices that have been adopted by organisation in managing project quality? (5 Marks)