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Your company supplies precision optical elements and
coatings to major defense contractors Dynamicos and
Houghes companies. You hold a position as one of
the optical engineers making measurements on one
subcomponent of the lens system. One particular
product is part of a gunner's sighting systems.
During a two year period you notice that numerous
complaints from customers are received about
defective components. You look back through the
records and find that there have been similar
complaints as far back as 10 years. You suspect
that there might be a system design or process issue
and you alert the marketing/sales director about the
quality problems. However, after reviewing all of
the test data and specification sheets for the parts
they all appear to be good quality parts. After
thoroughly testing three different returned parts
you find that it is indeed defective. What could be
the problem?
Later your supervisors the Vice President of
Manufacturing and Vice President of Operations tells
you that the total system design has no problems and
that the designs and specifications of all shipped
products have been “approved by senior management”.
Assignment:
What would you do next? How would you handle the
situation if your supervisors told you to “mind your
own business”?
Get in pairs and outline a correspondence memo
addressed Mr. Bob Marketer, Director of Marketing
explaining the situation and what you suspect might
be the problem with the defective parts.
Case study
prepared by Robert Bunch.
Student
Response to this case study:
Memo - 1
Memo - 2
Memo - 3
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