Santa Cruz Guitar Company: Viewed Under the Lens of Deming’s 14 Points

Appleby runs an annual concert where members of the Guitar Club are given a chance to perform the songs that they have been working on for the year. In 2015, I was the organizer of Guitar Fest, making announcements, preparing set lists, designing posters and getting other members of the club involved. Guitar Fest was very successful last year, with both a great audience turnout and amazing performances from club members.

However, if the cost of “perfection” is so expensive that the company cannot be profitable, it is not realistic to spend too much on a zero defect mindset. Instead the company must first identify what an acceptable percentage of defects is and where the defect could have been prevented. Then the company can further quantify which cost of quality is presenting the greatest risk and put procedures and policies in place in an attempt to minimize defects. Since prevention costs many times are considered the least expensive and can have the biggest affect on non-conforming products most companies will focus its initial and largest efforts into prevention. The next initiative would be appraisal and last would be identifying

For Andrei Octavian PARASCHIVESCU and Florin Mihai CAPRIOARA, organizations that desire to implement a strategic quality management approach should consider both the strategic dimension of quality and the management strategy (2014, p 19). In fact, both writers stipulate ”Quality Management” aims to advance quality to meet patron’s requirements by controlling processes (Paraschivescu & Caprioara, 2014, p 21). Likewise, their ideas confirm that the production approach demands a strict input from workers. In doing so, quality improvement teams can measure and spot

The piece ‘Ocean’ by John Butler appeals popular to the 21st century audience through his variety of guitar techniques. Butler uses an 12 stringed semi-acoustic guitar with open C tuning and Capo on the 4th fret giving an open chord of E Major. The song is through composed and consists of several sections that demonstrate guitar techniques and musical concepts.

Resonance and echo take place inside the box of the guitar. From here you get the rich sounds that melt hearts and inflame the emotions. Listen to the sounds that come out of the guitar you are thinking of buying to see what you feel when you strum a few chords. Your ear will be your best friend in this endeavor. Remember these properties are why a Stradivarius violin is worth a million or more dollars. You want the best sound you can get from your guitar as well.

SOC gave employees the chance to measure quality and make recommendations for changes essential for quality improvement. It was one of the most important key issues in improving the quality level of production and take precautions on time against quality problems.

Yasin and Alavi (1999) conducted a quantitative study to determine if Total Quality Management (TQM) can produce quality improvement

Every company has their own theory and goals behind what they overall want to see or become. This paper is written with intent to help better understand a real life situation that took place at Guitarras Dominquez. When a company first opens their doors for business, they use high end material to show the essence of quality in their product which will allow for growth in their customer base. Do you ever wonder how a company gets far in doing so? Intention from the start of a business does not include cutting corners and saving money, but eventually with budget cuts and business plans they tend to become necessary.

* Understanding the limits of product sampling and inspection methods, especially for a product that is destroyed by the inspection process itself

The Guitar is a stringed musical instrument with six or twelve strings that is played by either plucking or strumming the strings. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. If an individual were asked to identify a guitar most people would answer the question correctly more so than they would if they were asked about another instrument. When people think about famous guitarists, they more than likely think of famous rock and roll guitarists and do not think about the many other famous guitarists in other musical genres such as jazz or country. The guitar is a well-known instrument that influences many musical genres including Country.

Fender is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. The privately held company was founded by Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender in Clifornia in 1946. The company specializes in solid body electric guitars such as the Stratocaster and Telecaster, and solid body electric bass guitars such as the Precision and Jazz models. Fender instruments are widely considered to be the standard to which most other electric guitars are measured.

All the quality experts say that there are processes in which inspection will be needed. All the quality experts agree cost and competition does not compete with each other. Deming Juran and Crosby support the practice of involving the suppliers in the quality effort.

Dr. W. Edward Deming is best known for reminding management that most problems are systemic and that it is management's responsibility to improve the systems so that workers (management and non-management) can do their jobs more effectively. Deming argued that higher quality leads to higher productivity, which, in turn, leads to long-term competitive strength. The theory is that improvements in quality lead to lower costs and higher productivity because they result in less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays, and better use of time and materials. With better quality and lower prices, a firm can achieve a greater market share and thus stay in business, providing more and more jobs.

The system of quality is prevention: This is why management must take the concept of prevention very seriously because it reduces defects and it lowers cost. This absolute state that appraisal, checking and inspection is an expensive and unreliable way of getting quality. Prevention can be achieved if during production process opportunities for error are identified. Prevention can also be achieved using statistical quality control method. Crosby (1995).

Our company should make sure that manufacturers deliver products with the highest design specification, in order to be order-winner quality conformance, by delivering products with no defects (Hill and Hill, 2012). Furthermore, improvements in quality lead to a decrease in cost for the company. According to (Evans, 1997) higher quality products lead to a decrease in costs for the company through higher productivity: ‘improvements in quality leads to lower cost because of less re-work, fewer mistakes, fewer delays and snags’ (Evans 1997, P.55).