Statistical Process Control - Essay Example

Statistical Process Control due: Introduction Statistical process control (SPC) is an analysis tool for analysis and evaluation of a company for improvements. SPC is simple and provides an effective way of problem-solving within the company, with the aim of improving the process of service delivery or production by the company. This paper examines the use of the statistical process control tool. The tool was developed in the 1920 by Walter Shewhart (Keller, 2011). The future of the enterprise is determined by how well it is managed, from the top management to the junior workers. The management should, therefore, ensure that there is use of the most proper management approach, for an effective problem-solving and improvement of the process of production or allowance of service by the company. This ensures that the company runs smoothly without chaos. Company description In this paper, discussion will be made on a U.S based giant company by the name Walmart. This corporation was started in the year 1962, with its first store in Rogers, Arkansas. The corporation started as a small discount retailer but has since expanded internationally. By embracing innovations, the corporation has allowed its customers to shop online. Presently, Walmart operates more than 11,000 retail units in 27 countries and employs 2.2 million associates globally, out of which 1.3 million of the associates come from the U.S alone (Fishman, 2006). Walmart being a large shopping corporation deals in consumer end products ranging from clothing to groceries. Specifically, focus will be given on the entire shopping service that it provides. To increase sales especially in foreign countries, it uses the campaign “everyday low prices.” This has however not worked in all states. A reference point is what happened in Japan when Walmart bought a share in the Seiyu Company, but the successful strategy of the campaign failed. This is because the shoppers in Japan did not respond like the shoppers in the U.S. The Japanese shoppers associated the low prices with low quality and thus avoiding shopping there. Statistical process control as a technique for improvement of the service quality Despite the continued success of Walmart especially in the U.S, there are areas that need to be improved especially in the foreign markets to ensure success globally. The fact that Walmart has failed to replicate its success in some of the foreign markets could be attributed to the lack of the corporation to fine-tune its shopping experience to the local culture. For instance in South Korea, the corporation should have agreed to the needs of the shoppers, who prefer goods in small packages, thereby forcing the shoppers to stick to the local stores where they could buy the goods at cheaper prices. The same reasons led to Walmart closing down its store in Germany. Proper use of SPC would have helped to ensure success of Walmart in these foreign markets. The following steps of SPC ought to be strictly adhered to: 1. Identification of process customers and their requirements. Both the internal and external suppliers need to have a clear understanding of the targeted customers, what are their needs and the how the process meets the customer expectations. The expectations in terms of package sizes and tastes would have allowed Walmart to fully satisfy the customers. 2. Analysis of the process, ranking the problems and opportunities. Collection of supporting data would have given Walmart, an upper hand in its operations in markets like Japan. This is because it would have allowed it to weigh the value and impact of each aspect, like the exact package the customer needs and the justified cost of the products. This helps to establish the most appropriate areas of improvement of the process. 3. Identification of the root causes of the issues and establishment of control systems plays an important role in avoidance of a recurrence of the same problem in the future. For Walmart to regain the success in the failed markets, it needs to consider corrective action based on these findings. 4. Development of implementation plans pertaining the recommended changes is an important aspect of the statistical process control. All the stakeholders need to be involved. The senior management should come together and approve an action plan guiding the corporation on the way to implement a new strategy. Since changes are inevitable, the corporation has to embrace them for better implementation of the process of product sales. The stakeholders, including the senior management will have the responsibility of ensuring that the implementation of the changes is in effect by all the departments. 5. SPC will also involve revision of the process. Once the problems previously identified in the process are solved, such as the unfavorable packaging, all the loopholes in the process should be sealed for improvement of the services. In this case revision of the process will involve packaging the products in small sizes affordable by the customer, and proper pricing of the products to avoid the scenario in Germany where shoppers went for the cheaper groceries at the local stores. Quality tools To quantify the quality improvement, one of the employed tools is quality audits. This audit seeks to establish if the organization is meeting the quality standards, as per the requirements of the customers, suppliers, partners, collaborators, industry sector as well as the government regulations in the area of operation. Self-assessment is another important tool. The corporation needs to identify the available improvement opportunities in the organization’s core business. After the identification, the organization will then take advantage of the opportunities. The opportunities could be unexploited markets or high demands for a particular product or service. Walmart has made good use of this tool especially in the U.S, where it takes advantage of selling products at cheap prices thus maintaining a competitive edge over other companies, which has resulted to continued improvements in its process. Importance of process capability Process capability is important in that it measures the deep-rooted duplicability turned out by the process. This ensures that there is a balance amid the supplier and the customer. In the event that the customer demands more than can be supplied by the producer, there is creation of the need of a new supplier. In our case, however, the customer demands are comfortably met by Walmart, thus making the process of products delivery to consumers complete and without hitches (Thornton, 2004). To measure the process capability of the sale of consumer end products by Walmart, focus will be made on the business process optimization and provide an integrated view of the failures that may occur in the sale of the products .The customers view should be satisfied, by ensuring that the products sold to them by Walmart are reliable and that Walmart is responsive to all the consumer concerns (Schaefer, 2014). References Fishman, C. (2006). The Wal-Mart effect: How the worlds most powerful company really works, and how its transforming the American economy. New York: The Penguin Press. In Schaefer, D. (2014). Product development in the socio-sphere: Game changing paradigms for 21st Century breakthrough product development and innovation Keller, P. A. (2011). Statistical process control demystified. New York: McGraw Hill Professional Thornton, A. C. (2004). Variation risk management: Focusing quality improvements in product development and production. 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