Discussion 4 – Quality

Research quality management techniques. Then address ONE of the following:

· Your company is suddenly experiencing a lot of manufacturing errors. These are quality issues in the production effort and about 10% of your output is bad/poor quality.  What 2 quality management techniques do you feel would be best to address these errors? Why would you recommend those 2?  Why are they more effective than any other QM technique?
OR:

· You are helping a client with customer relationship management in the service industry. She has unhappy customers and you cannot easily see what the problem is or where it originates. What 2 quality management techniques do you feel would be best to address this problem? Why would you recommend those 2?  How will those techniques help you to find the source of the unhappy clients?

Discussion Topic

In this discussion, we are going to research the art/science of forecasting. Please make an original posting by next Monday which discusses each of the following three topics. Hint: week 8 lectures are going to be very helpful in formulating your original posting.

· Briefly compare qualitative and quantitative forecasting in 1 – 2 paragraphs.  Identify a few pros and cons of each, and mention an industry each might be suited for.
 

· How has globalization changed the practice of forecasting? Have methodologies / timing / geographical markets changed?
 

· Select an industry.  How do you think companies in that industry should adjust their forecasting because of the world-wide pandemic?  Suggest a forecasting method or two and tell us why. 

Then interact with your peers.

For each of the above topic questions, use outside sources to support your replies. A minimum of 3 sources is expected, using relevant professional sites (no Wikis, blogs, or dictionaries, please). Write in your own words, do not include quoted material as I subsequently cannot tell if you can articulate it, and properly cite and reference your sources as per APA. 

Respond to your peers throughout the two-week period. When responding to peers, please draw upon your own research and opinions to create substantive responses to their postings.