Reference no: EM132253595

Different Views on Quality Leadership Where were you on January 28, 1986?

Some of you could be too young to remember. On that day, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded and fell to the ground. Its demise was noted to be a failure in O-rings, which are an integral part of the rocket assembly. The O-rings are placed between the major sections of the rocket and keep gases sealed inside the sections. When the O-rings leaked on the rocket launch, the gasses ignited, causing an explosion. Follow-up examination found that NASA leadership had ignored their engineers' attempts to warn them that some of the O-rings on the shuttle might fail at lower temperatures because they would lose their resiliency and not seal. Why would leadership ignore the engineers' warnings—or did they? The common view is that NASA ignored the engineer's ruling—but, as usual, the truth is much more complicated than this urban legend.

Here is what happened: • The shuttle had never been launched at the temperature as it was on January 28, 1986, but data from other launches allowed engineers (using regression) to predict that the O-rings would fail if a launch occurred below freezing. • The engineers notified their management, who notified NASA, who agreed to postpone the launch given one condition: The supplier of the O-rings had to be the entity that told the president of the United States (Reagan) that the launch would not happen as scheduled. This may sound easy enough—but now the story gets even more complicated. • It seems that NASA had not set the launch date. The date was set by the White House to coincide with the State of the Union address—in which the president would speak directly to the nation saying he had fulfilled a promise to put a teacher in space. • Someone had to tell the president that he would not be able to use that part of his speech—all for an event that might or might not happen. Here is what NASA knew: If the White House were informed of the situation, the launch would be canceled (the right move), but there also would be repercussions—funding would be cut, heads would roll, and more. • So, given the certainty of the outcome (heads would roll) against the potential for a three-time product failure (there were three O-rings and all three would have to fail) the decision was to launch the shuttle—and the shuttle exploded. So, what are the lessons? Well, it is easy enough to blame NASA and NASA's supplier, but perhaps the answer is deeper. If leadership (the president) establishes a culture wherein the employees (NASA and NASA suppliers) are afraid to bring the forth bad news, then accidents will (eventually) happen, and when they do, the results can be horrific. In this situation, the president established a presidential commission that blamed the shuttle explosion on NASA, which is the side of the story we hear about. NASA certainly has some accountability, but perhaps the White House and the president have some level of accountability also.

1. Using the NASA example in the lecture, provide an alternative solution to the case. Link your recommendations to the concepts of quality definition, quality strategies, and the Kano model Use APA to reference your response.