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Weingart Aircraft Case

Satisfactory Essays

Introduction
The President Ralph Larsen has realized that Wengart has some major problems with the quality however he is focusing on the profitability instead of the longevity of the company. He needs to have the team focus on improving the quality problem or the company’s profits will continue to decrease. Larsen in the effort to improve the quality has decided to seek out help from an OD practitioner who suggests to Ralph to implement Top Quality Management (TQM). Larsen feels that this should be easy to implement and hands it off to Kent Kelly the Vice President. He feels that the TQM program was a matter of common sense (Brown, 2011, p. 365).
I. Problems
A. Macro
1. Wengart Aircraft should mandate total quality management …show more content…

3. The implementation of the TQM program is not being properly clarified for the other groups of management. The managers haven’t had proper training or guidance of what the expectations of the team to attain the desired results to improve the quality throughout the company.
III. Systems Affected
1. Structural – the company needs to flatten out the management authority for better communication at all levels. The teams are lacking structure to implement TQM and understand of how it can affect quality.
2. Quality – the company throughout management and productions workers question TQM and believe that it is designed to speed up production and would cause the reduction of the third shift. Allen Yoshida is now more worried about production instead of productivity
3. Productivity – Veteran workers George Karas and Shannon Potowski calculated that 20 % of the time their group worked on reworking defective harnesses (Brown, 2011, p. 365). They believe that TQM will increase productivity and cause layoffs in the plant.
IV. Alternatives
1. Bring in a new Quality Manager with TQM experience to implement the needed changes to bring improvement and make their customers feel that favorable changes are coming.
2. Set up a quality team that includes union and management members of the company
3. Educate all members of management on TQM implementation and the importance of quality

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