case study questions and review essays

Chapter 13

Sample answer to case study           Mr. Monahan came brought his car for boy work and ended up with numerous mechanical problems. Quality problems in this case include:             • Reliability – Although Cranston Nissan was able to fix the original problem, Mr. Monahan ended up with other problems. This entails having to do more work in the car. Reliability decreases with the management’s attitude towards the situation. He could not rely on their (Cranston Nissan’s Service Department) word. They were unable to deliver the car on time, they tried to pass a problem they had caused to the customer, and they billed the customer for something they had told him he would not be billed for. To add to how unreliable they had been, they kept breaking something new every time they try to fix a previous problem.             • Serviceability – It seems that every new problem in his car is a result of fixing and old problem, or incorrectly handling the original problem. There seems to be a chain or a connection between each mechanical part which decreases the serviceability of the car (this may be proved or disproved by looking into how the car was engineered). Another dimension of this is their possible lack of capability to get the job done correctly, i.e. without creating a new problem. As they create one problem after another, their serviceability decreases

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Chapter 14

Sample answer to case study

1. I think that the Deepwater Horizon accident is a clear and unequivocal case that illustrates the proverb “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Although there were many causes that lead to the explosion, if few of those causes were counterfeited then the damage would have been smaller.

2. Well I think that the control issue in this case was that know one really knew who was in charge and everything was pretty much disorganized and out of control. After the explosion, the captain of the rig met up with another eight managers and crew members, but he had no idea of what to do that he started blaming on someone else. The lack of management and organization shows the higher risks of causing problems.

3. To begin with, BP was focused in massive productivity in a short amount of time. They lacked the organization and management because they were in rush to finish their jobs as quickly as they could. The best way could have been, although it is a little bit more expensive, to take these kinds of jobs slowly and requiring preventions and safety at all times. Because in the end the cost of environmental damage cost more than what they actually profited. Managers take the important roles of leadership to organize and make sure nothing happens and lower the possibility of a blowout. Tactical control, which are assessment and regulation of the day-to-day functions of the organization and its major unites in the implementation of its strategy, would have been the best to prevent a blowout because it double checks that nothing is going wrong.

4. Flexibility, which is for control to be effective, its procedures must respond to changing conditions. Sources of control often affect the willingness of organization members to work cooperatively with the system. Lastly, the favorable cost-benefit ratio, which the designs of some control system look good on paper, but they prove to be impractical or costly to use.

CHAPTER 15

Sample answer to case study