Catalyst Paper is a paper manufacturer in Richmond, British Columbia. In 2018 the company was bought by Paper Excellence Canada. With a workforce of about 1,500 employees, Catalyst has a global customer base and over $1 billion in sales each year. Its annual production capacity is 1.3-million tonnes of paper and 336,000 tonnes of pulp. In the early 2010s, Catalyst Paper began dealing with many quality issues. These issues arose from the two enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that the company was using. These systems were so complex and difficult to access that the salespeople were having a hard time recording and retrieving customer information. They therefore had to keep track of customer information and sales requests by developing their own easier-to-access paper folders and spreadsheets. This made the work very time-consuming and prone to errors. Catalyst realized that this was an inefficient way for such a successful company to be doing business. The current customer information system was causing major problems, which caused incorrect ordering and production quantities of paper, which in turn had a negative impact on the company’s sales and decreased customer satisfaction. Catalyst understood that it needed to improve the quality of its service by centralizing access to customer relationship management (CRM) information. Catalyst needed a new CRM system in order to provide the employees with a centralized customer database with all the relevant customer information. This would allow the salespeople to promptly pull up the relevant customer information with no paper folder involved, therefore saving time, reducing the possibility of errors, and improving customer satisfaction.
Catalyst decided to implement the Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This system was integrated, and its ease of use made it an instant hit. A major benefit of this new system was salespeople being able to quickly access and assess customer information before the customer was called. Salespeople previously had to spend hours searching for and putting together information for each customer. Now, the time spent assembling such information was reduced by 95%, which in turn resulted in an improvement of 5% in sales productivity. Other benefits of Microsoft Dynamics CRM were speed and reliability, allowing salespeople to accurately quote customers the correct prices. The accuracy of a quote improved by 5%, and the time required to quote a customer improved by 10%. Overall, implementing the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM system has been very effective for Catalyst, both in improving sales and in customer satisfaction.

Discussion

1. As Catalyst Paper improved its quality with a more efficient CRM system, it also wanted to examine a specific process, such as the flow of troubleshooting, from the time the problem report was received until the problem was solved. Draw a flowchart for the process of troubleshooting by using the following outline, which includes some of the activities that might occur, as well as adding your own ideas. Troubleshooting flow: Customer calls customer support line and explains the problem. Customer service representative records problem in database and then notifies appropriate department of problem. Appropriate departmental employee reads details and familiarizes himself/herself with customer problem. Employee then collects customer information and calls to speak to customer. Employee establishes rapport with customer and explains process of solving the issue and reassures customer that problem will be solved. Employee asks customer any pertinent questions. Once all information is collected, employee develops a schedule of what has to be done and when. Employee then begins assessing details about what work must be completed and by whom. If the problem is a one-person job, then the employee can take on the issue and fix the problem on his/her own. If the problem is serious and requires a team effort, an email notice is sent out to other employees asking what task each of them is able to do to help solve the problem. Return emails must be kept track of to monitor which employee is in charge of which part of the problem. Employees are encouraged to voice any hesitations or concerns about the problem. Work is begun on resolving problem. Initial employee heading the troubleshooting task follows up every day to ensure work is on schedule. If any major disagreement or problem occurs during this process, employee addresses issue to departmental manager. Customer is updated on the status of the problem. Once problem is solved, employee in charge of troubleshooting the problem enters information in database and confirms to the customer that the problem has been solved.

2. It is very important for manufacturing companies to monitor their performance in order to ensure quality is being achieved. Companies are able to do this by using control charts. Think of the data that Catalyst can collect regarding all the quality issues that it must deal with on a regular basis. Based on your thinking, determine which variables can be used to ensure the quality characteristics of the manufacturing and sales processes at Catalyst. Then, based on these characteristics, discuss how the various control charts learned can be used to monitor, control, and improve Catalyst’s quality dimensions. In performing this analysis, ensure that there is a discussion on the methods that the company can use to detect whether the manufacturing and sales processes are in control or not.

3. Should Catalyst rely solely on control charts to manage and improve the quality control aspect of its operations, in general? Discuss other quality tools and methods that management can use to address the entire realm of quality issues, including after- process inspection.