Quality Control at Grass, Unlimited

Mark Sumansky owns and manages the Grass, Unlimited, lawn-care service in Middleton. His customers include individual homeowners and businesses that subscribe to his service during the winter months for lawn care beginning in the spring and ending in the fall with leaf raking and disposal. Thus, when he begins his service in April he generally has a full list of customers and does not take on additional customers unless he has an opening. However, if he loses a customer any time after the first of June, it is difficult to find new customers, since most people make lawn-service arrangements for the entire summer.

Mark employs five crews, with between three to five workers each, to cut grass during the spring and summer months. A crew normally works 10-hour days and can average cutting about 25 normal-size lawns of less than a half-acre each day. A crew will normally have one heavy-duty, wide-cut riding mower, a regular power mower, and trimming equipment. When a crew descends on a lawn, the normal procedure is for one person to mow the main part of the lawn with the riding mower, one or two people to trim, and one person to use the smaller mower to cut areas the riding mower cannot reach. Crews move very fast, and they can often cut a lawn in 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, although speed is an essential component in the profitability of Grass, Unlimited, it can also contribute to quality problems. In his or her haste, a mower might cut flowers, shrubs, or border plants, nick and scrape trees, "skin" spots on the lawn creating bare spots, trim too close, scrape house paint, cut or disfigure house trim, and destroy toys and lawn furniture, among other things. When these problems occur on a too-frequent basis, a customer cancels service, and Mark has a difficult time getting a replacement customer. In addition, he gets most of his subscriptions based on word-of-mouth recommendations and retention of previous customers who are satisfied with his service. As such, quality is a very important factor in his business.

In order to improve the quality of his lawn-care service, Mark has decided to use a process control chart to monitor defects. He has hired Lisa Anderson to follow the teams and check lawns for defects after the mowers have left. A defect is any abnormal or abusive condition created by the crew, including those items just mentioned. It is not possible for Lisa to inspect the more than 100 lawns the service cuts daily, so she randomly picks a sample of 20 lawns each day and counts the number of defects she sees at each lawn. She also makes a note of each defect, so that if there is a problem, the cause can easily be determined. In most cases the defects are caused by haste, but some defects can be caused by faulty equipment or by a crew member using a poor technique or not being attentive.

Over a three-day period Lisa accumulated the following data on defects:

1.In three sentences or less, identify and summarize the salient problem/s faced by Grass Unlimited.

2.Construct the appropriate quality control chart/s using the date provided in the case.

3.Based on your results of controls chart/s from Question (2), clearly explain whether the process in control?

4.Clearly explain what suggestions would you give to the Mark Sumansky?