Stuart Injection Molding Company
1
Stuart Injection Molding Company (SIMC) is a small business that specializes in custom
plastic molding for many different industries, including appliances and various consumer
products such as toys. Adele Stuart, daughter of the company’s founder and current CEO
wishes to expand into the automotive sector. However, she realizes that to do so will
require more formalized systems and eventually ISO 9000 registration. Although many
basic procedures for assuring quality are in place, most have been conducted informally,
and the company never compiled a formal quality manual that documents the system and
outlines specific responsibilities for managers and workers. Recognizing the lack of a
manual as a major deficiency, they called you in as a consultant to help. After spending
some time in the plant talking with many employees, you jotted down several notes and
observations:
• The plant manager (PM) is responsible for ensuring the success of the quality
management system by providing the necessary resources and reviewing system
performance. However, SIMC has a quality assurance (QA) department that is
• All functional departments recognize their responsibility for quality planning and
producing high-quality products. For example, the marketing and sales department
• Most products are custom-designed with the customer. When a new job is
contracted, a cross-functional team is selected that includes members from project
engineering, quality assurance, manufacturing, and sales. This team develops all the
• The company uses a variety of contemporary tools to simplify and optimize the
product while also focusing on reducing production cost and waste. These tools include
quality function deployment, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, design for
manufacturing and assembly, value engineering, design of experiments, failure mode and
effects analysis, and cost/performance/risk analysis.
• Inspection is routine during the production process. QA lab personnel perform all
phases of inspection and testing. Production operators use a “first–piece” inspection
process to validate the start-up for a new product. Receiving inspection is performed on
• Nonconforming products are labeled with a “Do Not Use” tag and kept from
being shipped. This tag describes the nonconformance, documents the disposition
decision, and records the reinspection results. If they are repaired or reworked, they are
reinspected. Products that do not fully comply with specific requirements are not shipped
without customer authorization. When nonconformities are detected, a cross-functional
team investigates them and corrective actions are initiated to prevent their recurrence.
• SIMC has a continuous improvement philosophy that pervades the entire
