The production manager (Jack), quality control manager (Josh) and planning manager (Jill) work for a company producing PVC raw materials for customers making a variety of PVC products such as clothing, tarpaulins, seat covers, plastic containers etc. Here is a conversation on the shop floor between them con- cerning a customer complaint about the PVC raw materials.

Josh: I wish your department would give more attention to quality, Jack. We can only do a 10 per cent check on quality from our random sampling. Now we have this complaint from a customer about quality on a batch we produced last week. And the boss is real mad... was real mad when I told him.

Jack: Why the heck didn't you come to me first?... this puts me in a bad light before I have a chance to investigate and do some- thing. You have assumed that the factory is to blame...it could have been...

 Josh: You always have some excuse and start blaming others... like blaming me for poor quality control checks. You've even put pressure on our department to be retrained, or even fired, for poor quality control, when you know we are under pressure with increased sales. Have you forgotten....? (Interrupts)

Why don't you let me finish my sentence before you cut in and attack me? Josh: Well you're always finding fault with me. So now you know what it's like. Anyway, what did you want to say?

Jack: I wanted to suggest that our complicated delivery schedule can cause confusion.

Josh: It's you chaps that make it complicated. I've already checked with Jill on planning and also checked despatch. There was nothing wrong with the order. This is clearly a pro- duction mess up... 

Jack: Well I'm going to check with Jill's schedule anyway to make sure we have got the right production schedule...

Josh: Go ahead... perhaps you will be able to blame Jill.

Questions

1. What do you see as the underlying cause of the conflict between Jack and Josh?

2. If you were Jill, how would you encourage Jack and Josh to investigate the complaint?

3. How would you attempt to avoid further conflict?