Clayboy Pottery Company: A Case Study in Quality Management in a Job Shop Operations System

Michael R. Summers

American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, 2010, vol. 2, issue 1, 113-119

Abstract: Background: This case study is designed for upper-level undergraduate students in a basic operations management course. Prerequisites would include statistics and computer science. Objective: The purpose of the case is to give the students an opportunity to apply statistical quality control techniques. The case presents an interesting problem in a real setting and students will be forced to consider realistic issues in tradeoffs between cost and quality. The setting is a job shop, where jobs arrive randomly and have different requirements, as opposed to a mass-production type of system. Methodology: The analysis lends itself nicely to working on spreadsheets and the data may be changed easily to provide for reuse of the case. Based on probability calculations of the number of defects found in a group of current jobs, students calculate the costs of various sampling techniques. Results: Students are expected to try different sampling alternatives in order to minimize costs and also to consider nonquantitative ramifications of different alternatives and the realities of the situation. Conclusion: From this case study students should develop a good appreciation of statistical quality control techniques, as well as other aspects of a total quality management program.

Keywords: Operations management; statistical quality control; case studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://thescipub.com/pdf/ajebasp.2010.113.119.pdf (application/pdf)
https://thescipub.com/abstract/ajebasp.2010.113.119 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2010.113.119

DOI: 10.3844/ajebasp.2010.113.119

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Economics and Business Administration from Science Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jeffery Daniels ().