Reference no: EM132883388
Big yellow school buses. They're a common sight at the beginning and end of the school day in many communities. One company that manufactures those school buses is Blue Bird Corporation. School buses are a product where quality is paramount. After all, that product is carrying precious cargo! However, achieving an organizational culture that's dedicated to quality and to efficient manufacturing isn't an easy thing to do.
Blue Bird's plant in Lafayette, Georgia, started on its "lean" journey-that is, having a lean, efficient operation system in 2003. The manager of engineering said at that time, "Quality was at an all-time low. The plant was lacking in strategic systems and procedures to control quality, materials, production, finance and human resources." That year under new management, Blue Bird got serious about tackling its quality issues and implemented specific programs, including a material review board, a quality control lab equipped with a computerized maintenance management system, an employee suggestion system, weekly management roundtable meetings, and a safety incentive program. One key contributor to the company's success was measurement. They measured everything. The production manager said, "If you don't measure something, you don't know how well you're doing." Just how effective have these programs been?
The customer reject rate is basically zero, with on-time delivery at 100 percent. The director of quality and risk management said, "Doing it right the first time takes a
lot less time." Safety has also improved. The company's recordable injury rate was down 65 percent and time lost due to injuries was down by 87 percent. After four years of hard work, the company achieved initial ISO 9001-2000 certification in March 2007. And it was named one of Industry Week's Best Plants in 2007.
However, that's not the end of the story. Like many manufacturers, the global recession hit Blue Bird Corporation hard. The North Georgia facility was closed in August 2010, and all bus assembly operations were centralized into its Fort Valley, Georgia, location. The company's CEO said, "This was a difficult decision, and one not arrived at without significant deliberation. Moving North Georgia's assembly operations to Fort Valley centralizes all production operations, technical staff and services into a single facility. This centralization will facilitate significant efficiencies."
Source: Robbins, S.P. & Coulter, M. (2012), Management. 11th edition, Pearson.
(a) Assess the types of Blue Bird's quality initiative that you think would have been most useful in the situation mentioned above.
(b) Explain the four steps in the control process and how could such steps help this company in the future.