Handles and Hinges Ltd Essay Example

Handles and Hinges Ltd Essay Example Handles and Hinges Ltd Essay Handles and Hinges Ltd Essay Introduction :Handles and Hinges Ltd HH was established in Birmingham, England, by two young entrepreneurs, Dave Philips and Chris Agnew, both experienced in the hardware trade. The business specialized in the ‘designer’ market for polished metal (brass or stainless steel) door handles, cupboard knobs, furniture fittings (mostly used in shop/office furniture) and hinges. Their company was successful, was based on HH’s reputation for high-quality, unique designs of both traditional and modern products, many of which were selected and specified by architects for large and prestigious projects such as new office developments in London’s Docklands. Dave, the Chief Executive Officer, with responsibility for sales, believed that most orders from construction companies were placed with HH because they assumed they had no other choice once the HH products had been specified. Larger companies would sometimes suggest to the architect MARKETING PERSPECTIVE . Carefully examine the marketing method/processes/approaches by HH 2. Observe the strategic marketing plan such that the products can be improved to meet customer needs and requirements 3. How does the company compete in its market place, and what is the role of ‘quality’ in its competitive strategy? Discussions with Chris (the Manufacturing Director) put a different perspective on the problem: ‘The sales catalogue shows pictures of our products prepared for photography; special effects are used to give a bright polished finish but we actually use a matt finish. : The samples used by Sales are specially made by experienced craftsmen to eliminate any scratching or minor faults; of course, we cannot always repeat that standard with the modern batch production methods. ‘We were aware that the reorganization of production methods could lead to quality problems, so I introduced statistical control, a subject I studied extensively in a quantitative methods course at the local college. Our inspectors now take random samples of batches of components and measure important dimensions such as the diameter or length of brass handles, the thickness of the incoming materials, etc. Batches which fail are either rejected or reworked, and all material where we have identified any fault at all is returned to the supplier, and our buyers routinely threaten to place orders elsewhere. I instructed the supervisors to inspect press tooling just before the start of each production batch to ensure that there are no surface faults, so I think it is unlikely that the dents and blemishes are caused in production. I must make a point of checking that this is happening. Anyway, our final inspection sampling has been changed to give an acceptable quality level (AQL) of 2 per cent whereas until recently it was only 5 per cent. We have had to increase the number of final inspectors by four at a cost of ? 15 000 each per annum, but all the management team agrees that with quality products we must be confident of the final quality before packing. We trained some of our best assemblers in SPC and made them full-time inspectors; the combination of their technical and statistical skills ensures that we have the right people for this job. We could not rely on our operators to do any dimensional checks; hardly any of them know how to measure using a metric rule, let alone a micrometer or vernier gauge. It is best to keep them concentrating on achieving correct output targets. I believe that most quality problems here must be caused by occasional operator carelessness. ‘The batch method of production has given us much more control over operations. No longer do we have to rely on hard-to-recruit craftsmen who did everything slowly and unpredictably. Now we make the most of economic batches at each stage, benefiting from the economies of scale of longer runs and cheaper unskilled labour. With incentive bonuses based on effective performance against agreed standard times, all our people are working faster to achieve the company’s goal of higher productivity. There is no doubt that our operations are now more productive than they’ve ever been. With high quality and low costs, we are now set for a major assault on the competition. We expect our profits to rise dramatically from the currently inadequate 1 per cent return on sales. ’