SECTION $2$

QUESTION $1$:

Case Study

Read the case study below and answer the questions that follow, drawing insights from the

information provided, as well as using information from your textbook and other suitable sources

like Sabinet or the ProQuest online library.

TURNAROUND AT THE PRESTON PLANT

Introduction

According to the Chief Operating Officer $($COO$)$ at the Preston Precision Paper Plant "Before

the crisis, production monitoring was done to please the client. Data readouts were brought to

the production meetings, and we all looked at the data but nobody was looking behind the data"

The curl problem

In the Spring of $2008,$ Hewlett$-$Packard $($HP$),$ the plants main customer informed the plant of

problems it had encounter with paper curling under conditions of low humidity. HP had not

received any customer complaints as HP$\text{'}$s own staff had picked up the problem. Preston staff

worked for about $8$ months to resolve the curling problem. By January of the following year

acceptable product was being supplied to HP$.$ Although volumes were up now, the plant was

making a loss of about $10$ million per year. Tom Banton then got appointed as the new COO.

Slipping out of control

Although the curling problern was solved, productivity, scrap and rework levels were poor. In

response to this, operations managers increased the speed of the production line in order to

raise productivity.

According to Tom Banton "changes were made, without any proper discipline. There was no

real concept of control, and the process was allowed to drift. Our culture was $"$if its within spec

then it's okay" and we were very diligent to make sure that product shipped to HP was in spec

HP gets its own Process Data, which allowed it to see exactly what was going on inside its

business. This information was shared with Preston but was not analysed.

The next Spring was an eventful year for Preston. HP approached Preston to produce a new

paper for its new generation of Viper printers. Preston was also acquired by the Rendal Group

$($RG$),$ who were not happy with what they saw. Preston had been making a loss for $2$

consecutive years and had received a critical quality audit finding from HP$.$ The RG made it

known that if Preston did not receive the Viper contract the future looked bleak. At plant level

HP was starting to make more complaints about quality levels. Preston production staff were

bewildered. $"$We are making roll after roll, and it is within spec and at a $97\%$ uptime. The $3\%$

loss was accepted as changeover differences between the various shifts each having their own

tools. What's the problem"?

During a meeting between Tom Banton and HP$,$ and engineer handed Tom some of the

process data that we had to supply with every batch. "Here is your latest data and we think that

you are out of control, and youdo don't even know it$.$ I think that we as HP look at this data

more than you.

The crisis

Tom immediately set about the task of getting the plant back under control. His initial "walking

the shop floor" findings were that the staff were helpful towards each other. Maintenance was

being done however it was not well organised. Maintenance findings were not acted upon.

Production teams handed over from shift to shift on a word$-$of$-$mouth basis. The various

functional groups had a quarterly meeting at senior manager level and a monthly meeting at

shop floor level. All PIMS and POMS per line where stockpiled and captured within the week.

$($adapted from

www$.$myomlab.com$)$

Answer the following questions:

Based on your experience in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, advise Tom as to what he can

do to overcome this crisis, based on his findings as referred to in the case study.

$1\mathrm{.}1$ Provide a detailed report to Tom Banton taking his observations and your knowledge of Lean

Manufacturing into account. In paragraph format, introduce Tom to the following:

a$)$ The Six Sigma problem solving methodologies that he could consider to resolve the

situation at Preston.

b$)$ Which 'process and value stream mapping' he could introduce at Preston.

Note: include relevant examples for your answers above to demonstrate your understanding.

$1\mathrm{.}2$ Describe in detail to Tom Banton how the 'process design' aspects can be implemented within

the Preston Plant to assist in improving operations. Utilise the information from the case study

and include relevant suggestions to support your answer.

$1\mathrm{.}3$ Suggest any six $(6)$ of the relevant 'Lean Tools' that Tom Banton can apply within his plant

with relevant examples for each tool, based on the case study information provided.