mgt415a5

Note: The following problem is fictitious but employs names of, and news from, real organizations. The idea is to increase the reality of the situation, and to improve your awareness of various industries and organizations.

You are a project manager at Gardner Graphics, a producer of tradeshow exhibits. International Business Machines (IBM) is one of your largest clients. After returning from an IBM client meeting, Gardner's director of marketing wants someone to check over the shipping document process. Apparently, during the client meeting some IBM people voiced concerns about high numbers of errors on Gardner invoices.

You've been asked to evaluate the invoicing process. You grab 20 invoices over 20 consecutive days, and record the number of documents each day out of the 20 that have errors. The raw data appear here.

You will report your findings to the director, who will surely share your report with the the IBM clients. To inform management effectively, consider addressing the following issues:

What is the average percentage of defective invoices per day, based on this sample?
Is the process in control?
Even if the process is in control, does the average percentage of defective invoices seem acceptable?
If management wants to improve, what types of issues should they address (think of the strategies for improving common cause versus special cause variation).

Remember to keep in mind tips for making effective tables and graphs.

NOTE: You should find this page of QC formulas and factors handy.