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Quality Control and Quality Assurance - Activity

Quality is seen as being a very important factor in any business. It does not have to be a physical product for which quality is important: service industries are just as much concerned with quality, as are manufacturers.

This Activity is based around a role-play exercise focusing on a car dealership. The firm and the personnel involved are all fictitious but the issues highlighted in the letter are real.

The Scenario

This is a role-play exercise in which you are the management team at a dealership of a prestigious car brand in the UK. You have received a letter from a customer highlighting a number of issues relating to one of the premium vehicles in the company's range.
View and print the complaint letter (http://www.bized.co.uk/educators/16-19/business/production/activity/sup_complaint.htm)

The letter is one example of a number of worrying comments received from not only customers but also the motor vehicle press about the quality of the PMV range. The dealership, however, faces a difficult series of decisions. It has failed to meet its sales targets for two years and is under pressure from the PMV head office to get results. If it does not meet its targets for next year, it risks losing the dealership.

The senior management team have arranged a meeting at which they are seeking to discuss the problems facing the company. Read the short profile of each member.

Your Task

You must spend a short time preparing for the meeting at which the key problems will be discussed. The intention of the meeting is to formulate a plan to deal with the problems. The plan will be drafted out and discussed amongst the rest of the class.

The Outcome

The aim of the Activity is to recognise the issues surrounding a firm purporting to have quality at the heart of its activities. You will need to consider the views of all the members of the management team and to make a contribution to the formulation of a plan to begin to solve some of the problems highlighted. You will need to be mindful of the relationship between the dealership and the senior management of the manufacturers. Part of your task will be to decide on how significant the potential problems are that face the business.

Once you have completed your plan, you should compare and contrast your proposals with those of other groups in the class. The focus of the discussion should be on the most appropriate strategy to raise the quality assurance policies of the company.

The Personnel

  • James Blackwell - Managing Director of the dealership and Chair of the meeting. Mr Blackwell has been the MD for 8 years during which time the dealership has seen good and bad times. He has always professed to be totally committed to quality but is not always around to ensure that the business meets his standards. His excuse is that he pays others to ensure that what he wants is carried out!
  • BoardroomMike Royston - Service Manager. Has tried hard to improve quality standards since his promotion to the post from another dealership in 2002. Sees problems in communication as being the key issue in customer relations.
  • Michelle DuPre - Accounts Manager. An experienced management accountant with her fingers on the pulse of the business. She has recognised the impact on the costs of the business of the warranty work that is being done on vehicles and the fact that warranty work not only does not generate revenue but also prevents revenue-generating work from taking place.
  • Yvonne Wilson - Sales Director. Yvonne is getting concerned at the feedback from customers and the press at the image the company seems to be getting. She faces searching questions from prospective customers and is finding it increasingly difficult to persuade such sceptical customers of the commitment to quality that the firm has. In addition, she recognises that the firm's customers tend to be from the A and B list and as such tend to be informed and aware of the issues facing the firm.
  • Douglas McAndrew - Promotions Manager. Sees the issues as being a small minority of people who have had unfortunate problems with their vehicles. His work in promotions involved him with the management at the Head Office of PMV cars and he is convinced of the quality of the product. He feels that the customers who have legitimate complaints have been 'unlucky' but are not representative of the client base as a whole.

Image Source: Gideon Geldenhuys, stock xchng (http://www.sxc.hu)