Download Name: Ramnarine Singh Due Date: 2/15/15 Course: IE673

Name: Ramnarine Singh
Due Date: 2/15/15
Course: IE673 eLearning
Homework Assignment 1
Questions:
1. What is Quality?
Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services, people, processes, and
environments that meets or exceeds expectations and helps produce superior value. Quality and
customer satisfaction are the same thing and quality is a broad concept that goes beyond just
product quality to also include the quality of people, processes, and every other aspect of the
organization.
2. What is TQM?
Total quality is an approach to doing business that attempts to maximize the competitiveness of
an organization through the continual improvement of the quality of its products, services,
people, processes, and environments.
3. How can we achieve organizational excellence with quality?
Organizational excellence can be achieved if the key elements of total quality are followed:
 Strategically based
 Customer Focus
 Obsession with Quality
 Scientific Approach
 Long-Term Commitment
 Teamwork
 Continual Process Improvement
 Education and Training
 Freedom Through Control
 Unity of Purpose
 Employee involvement and Empowerment
 Peak Performance
4. What is the Deming cycle?
The Deming cycle links the production of a product with consumer needs and focus the
resources of all departments in a cooperative effort to meet those needs.
 Conduct consumer research and use it in planning the product (plan).
 Produce the product (do).
 Check the product to make sure it was produced in accordance with the plan (check).
 Market the product (act).
 Analyze how the product is received in the marketplace in terms of quality, cost, and
other criteria (analyze).
5. What are the most common errors when starting quality initiatives?
 Delegating responsibility to a hired expert rater than applying the leadership necessary
to get everyone involved.
 Rushing in and putting everyone in teams when the corporate culture has changed and
before learning has occurred.
 Not concurrently developing plans for integrating them into all elements of the
organization (i.e., operations, budgeting, marketing, etc.).
 Taking an approach such as Deming, Juran, or Crosby and only use the principles
prescribed in them.
 Not helping people develop the actual skills necessary to implement concepts.
6. Explain the cost of poor quality.
Companies that drop quality initiatives during tough times are those that have never integrated
continual quality improvement as a normal part of doing business. These companies may
eliminate quality audits and use low bid suppliers instead of proven suppliers in order to
decrease overhead. This is good is some ways but the net outcome may be unhappy customers,
disengaged employee and a decline in business. There are many hidden cost in poor quality (Fig
2-1 of textbook) but an organization can improve performance by reducing deficiencies in key
areas, which can reduce overall costs.
7. What are the quality characteristics of world-class organizations?
 Customer Service
 Quality control and assurance
 Research and development/new product development
 Acquiring new technologies
 Innovation
 Team-based approach (adopting and using effectively)
 Best practices (study and use of)
 Manpower planning
 Environmentally sound practices
 Business partnerships and alliances
 Reengineering of processes
 Mergers and acquisitions
 Outsourcing and contracting
 Reliance on consulting services
 Political lobbying
8. Responsibility and total quality.
In order to build trust, integrity, and all the other elements of ethics that are so important in a
total quality environment, employees must accept responsibility. People are responsible for
their actions in a total quality setting. In todays world people want to blame others for their own
shortcomings and failures. A major part of ethical behavior is to accept responsibility.
9. Discuss some models for ethical quality decisions.
 Categorical imperative model – There are no gray areas when it comes to what is right
and what is wrong.
 Doctrine of the mean model – Moderation is suggested ethical in this model.
 Market-ethic model – Belief that any legal action that promotes profitability is ethical.
 Organizational ethic model – Based on loyalty to the organization. The most ethical
decision is the one that best serves the organization’s interests.
 Proportionality ethic model – When making decisions organization need to make sure
that the good outweighs the bad.
 Professional ethic model – decisions are ethical if it can be explained to the approval of
a broad cross-section of professional peers.
10. What is the engineering manager’s role in quality ethics?
Managers are responsible for following through and actually exemplifying ethical behavior. They
are responsible for establishing high ethical standards, setting a consistently positive example of
exceeding those standards, and acting immediately when they observe unethical behavior. BestRatio approach, Black-and-White approach and Full-potential approach can be used in carrying
out the responsibilities.
Social Networking: Executive Summaries
Ford Self-Driving Cars On-the-Cheap
In the automotive industry self-driving cars has become a key focus for many of the large automakers. It
has been a dream for some drivers to not be responsible of the tasks of braking, accelerating and
steering. Just about all car manufacturers are investing billions in new technologies such as lane
correction devices, three-dimensional cameras and various tools in an attempt to completely remove a
driver from behind the steering wheel. Ford has found a way to build self-driving cars at an inexpensive
cost.
The ideal of combining technology with cars to create futuristic vehicle is not a new one. However it has
only been in recent years, that companies have been getting closer to accomplish an automobile that
can drive itself and be worthy for the streets. Self-driving is accomplished by algorithms created survey
3D images while compared to real time images streaming from one camera. Focus is currently on
algorithms which can identify road edges, moving obstacles and eliminate shadows. Once a lidar map is
created, only a cheap video camera is necessary for a self-driving car that is inexpensive. The research
funded by Ford has shown that thousands of dollars can be saved when a cheap camera is used in lieu of
3D laser scanning technologies, which are currently in use by other manufacturers.
According to a recent study by Emerging Technologies, IHS Automotive forecasts that the price for the
self-driving technology will add between $7,000 and $10,000 to a car’s sticker price by 2025.
Companies such as Google, Toyota and Mercedes will have to incorporate Fords ideals if they want to
cut cost and make their product more affordable. Ford has concluded that all you need is a single
inexpensive camera, access to 3-D maps and custom software. However Ford needs improvements in
upgrading the software, 3D mapping and meet the driving requirements during the severe weather and
traffic conditions.
The Cisco Connected Factory: Powering a Renaissance in Manufacturing
For years industrial enterprises were operating at a disadvantage but recently have tried to incorporate
advanced technologies to boost manufacturing flexibility and speed, achieving new levels of overall
equipment effectiveness (OEE), supply chain responsiveness, and customer satisfaction in the process.
Cisco connected factory has allowed manufacturers advance business agility and to build a unified
enterprise-to-plant architecture while increasing visibility, Improve troubleshooting, and lowering costs.
Cisco connected factory is achieved by bringing together industrial and enterprise network.
Less downtime and higher OEE is achieved by embedded sensors that are self-aware and capable of
communicating with other machines without human intervention. Faster new product is accomplished
by opening up information flows between plant systems and business applications. Costly setup and
production changes are reduced by flexible control systems and automation networks. Security is
strengthened because of a secure router, industry leading firewall, intrusion prevention system (IPS),
wireless IPS, and Cisco TrustSec. Promoting innovation involves breaking down walls to promote
collaboration and creativity between operational domains and the data silos they hold. Cisco connected
factory has the networking and analytical platforms capable of processing and securing vast new
streams of industrial data from sensor embedded, internet ready machines.
Manufacturers now have the flexibility to adapt to changes quickly because of a converged network.
Flexible communication opportunities are achievable throughout the plant, between machines people
and data bases. Improved securities are possible through control of plant network access by user,
location, and device. Manufactures can now purchase from machine builders who can control, support,
and monitor their machines remotely. Connected factory has helped to cut plant energy use by 10-20
percent.
Connected is better and that is why best in class adopters of converged networks have only 8 hours of
downtime per year, 11% total cost of ownership reduction for industrial network, 90% overall
equipment effectiveness (OEE), and +25% operating margin VS. Corporate plan.
Use of Thin-Film Thermoelectrics in PCR Thermal Cycling
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has become more widely used in point-of-service applications, which
has increased the importance of rapid thermal cycling time. Laird’s thin-film thermoelectric (eTECs) used
in a PCR thermal cycler has two key features, which are the higher thermal response time and smaller
size. Laird has produced a thermal cycler capable of faster transition times that dramatically improves
on the existing conventional Peltier Solutions.
PCR is a scientific technique that amplifies a single or a few copies of a specific piece of DNA by several
orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence. The PCR
market has shown double digit growth year after year. PCR requires thermal cycling – heating and
cooling the DNA sample in a defined series of temperature steps. A Peltier cooler, heater, or
thermoelectric heat pump is a solid-state heat pump that transfers heat from one side of the device to
the other side against a temperature gradient (from cold to hot).
eTECs has more rapid thermal response (up to ten times greater), advanced integration capability, and
smaller footprint and thickness for the same heat pumping capacity when compared to conventional
ones. Exact temperature control has reduced the need to run several trials to get desired results and has
allowed for shorter throughput times for DNA amplification when thermal cyclers with thin-film
technology are used. Implementation of eTECs in PCR amplification has also resulted in higher density of
wells per machine.
Thermal cycle time is minimized and throughput maximized by minimizing the transition time between
phases. A typical PCR thermal cycler using thin-film thermoelectric devices is designed to provide rapid
thermal cycling for single well or lab-on chip designs. The temperature transition rates between phases
can be increased by the following:
1) Minimize the thermal capacity of the load.
2) Minimize the volume of the sample.
3) Minimize the thermal resistance.
4) Optimize the sample geometry to maximize the area for heat transfer.
The high heat pumping capacity per unit area of the thin-film modules, along with their inherent rapid
response, enables extremely rapid temperature transitions in the sample. With smaller sample volumes
faster transitions rates are accomplished. Optimal drive current from -0.9A to 0.6A range are achieved
by applying negative voltage to the assembly, which puts the eTEC into heating mode to achieve the
required temperature, and then switching the polarity to put the eTEC into cooling mode to drive the
device to the desired hold temperature.
There are many companies that sell thermoelectric cooler and temperature controllers that can drive
and control Laird eTEC modules. Laid thermoelectric modules are tested in mechanical shock, thermal
storage and power cycling and the results show that they are reliable in use in PCR thermal cycling
applications.
eTECs used in a PCR thermal cycler has resulted in key attributes such as higher thermal response time
and smaller size. Laird thermal cycler is capable of 1-2 seconds transition times for 50 µL sample sizes
that dramatically improve on the existing conventional Peltier Solutions.
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