Dr. Bill has retired from CSU and bought a failing guitar pick factory. For years, this company dominated the pick market, but recent technological developments have left them in the dust. There are rumors that the plant and office structure were built by the Spaniards soon after their initial conquest of this area…

Part of his plan to jump-start this company is to hire a CSU-DH grad as the grand poobah of HFE (and other duties as assigned). Your first few weeks are full of new assignments from Bill as well as requests for your new expertise. So, the majority of what follows will be in the form of a management briefing, slide show, or report, or memo.

9 questions plus 1 bonus question

1. Given the rapidly rising importance and pervasiveness of knowledge management, we could easily devote an entire course to information processing. As quality professionals we are often called upon to improve a process - and the result is the additional need for data collection or new "mental routines".

Dr. Bill wants to become the guitar pick success story for 2011 and has hired you to take the skills you have learned in QAS 515 and assist him in bringing (dragging?) the processes and workforce into the 21st century. After your first week walking around both the plant and admin areas with a clipboard taking notes, several themes arise:
• there are no computers – for stand-alone, process/machine control, or administration use
• there is a Tayloristic job breakdown and about 3 times as many workers as needed
• all of the production and lab equipment was built in the late 1920's and is well maintained, but single purpose
• the office furniture and layout looks like a 1950’s TV show
• everyone appears to be working steady, but no one appears to be even close to being "taxed"
• there is no sense of urgency in any area

With his big retirement check from the state of California, Dr. Bill plans sweeping changes: adding hi-tech machines, reorganizing and remodeling the office areas, cross-training plant personnel, going state-of-the-art with the QC labs, cutting plant personnel by 30% and office personnel by 45%, adding a web-based sales management system... you just cannot believe what all he has planned.

Your first specific assignment is to produce a "Look before you leap" report for Dr. Bill -- one that specifically addresses what could be the HFE impact of his planned changes in 'loading' to employees. So - put yourself in this picture and generate a heads-up report for Dr. Bill. (narrative response)

2. Bill knows he needs to redesign much of the plant, labs, and office areas. He knows a little about Anthropometric Information – so assumes that finding the right data and the corresponding mean will provide a blueprint for redesign of workstations. You need to provide him a 2-part briefing:
• a summary of anthropometry as it relates to HFE activities; and
• an explanation (ala’ Deming) about the problems with variation in collected data and populations.
• use PowerPoint for briefing

3. You are asked to review the process using a “tensile tester” in receiving inspection. Although you have never heard of this device, you are confident that your HFE knowledge can apply most anywhere. HINT: a tensile tester is basically a destructive test device that clamps a sample at the top and the bottom, then pulls a sample apart to see what it takes to break it. Since we are making plastic and acrylic picks, imagine taking a plastic ruler – clamping the top and bottom, then watching the clamped ends pulled in opposite directions – until the ruler pulls in two. It is typically a large machine, 3-5 feet tall and mounted on a work bench. In your plant, the machine requires short guys to stand on a box to load the top of the device and the taller folks had to bend way over to load the bottom part – an HFE disaster area.

Bill has asked a CQI team to look at this incoming testing. Use your new knowledge of the musculo-skeletal system to brief the CQI team why the process needs quick and extensive redesign. (narrative response)

4. If you have ever taken Kaizen training, or any of the many derivative series, you will have heard of the "3 MU's" or Muda, Mura, and Muri (waste, irregularity, and strain). The reduction of the 3 MU's is key to the success of a Kaizen based quality improvement process. But you already know that from the MSQA program, right? What you may not have seen was the HFE aspects of the 3 MU’s.

Dr. Bill has just come back from the big Kaizen event training that Masaaki Imai taught and is really psyched up about reducing the 3 MU's -- but he apparently dozed a bit and is having trouble remembering the difference between stress and strain. But more importantly, he does not seem to understand the connection between the 3 MU's and human factors. So he has asked you to do a 2-part briefing for top management on "What is stress and strain?” -and- “Why are they important in human factors engineering?" He said you would have 5 minutes -- 7 minutes tops. What will you tell the brass? (use PowerPoint for briefing – the slide format should be familiar by now)

5. Dr. Bill has done what many new managers do – had group meetings to listen to his workers. Many claim the conditions in the office, labs, and plant are poor and that they are badly fatigued by the end of the work week. His assistant has dutifully recorded all employee inputs. Bill gives you a copy with a sticky note saying only “Bring me a plan.”

You walk quickly back to your new office and open your QAS515 book and look up “fatigue” and “climate”… ok… you need to first explain to Bill just what fatigue is and how it would be recognized or measured; then explain how the climate (physical, mental, and psychological) in the various work areas might contribute to employee fatigue. (PPT slides)

6. As you sit at your 1956 desk working on #5 above for Dr. Bill – you start thinking that you have not really seen anyone hitting it too hard and wonder why they are saying they are fatigued. You think about the 3 types of loading*, plus over- and under-loading. Find a way to explain and hopefully quantify to Dr. Bill that the people are not really fatigued. (narrative response)

(*) 3 types of loading:
• physical
• mental
• psychological

7. It happens every time Dr. Bill takes a trip - you wish they would not have any management articles in those in-flight magazines!! This time he had been reading about CTD's (Cumulative Trauma Disorders) and is worried about his pick makers. He sends you the now familiar post-trip e-mail:

"Let’s see what you learned about HFE’s in college. Been reading about these CTD things: HAVS, CTS (carpal tunnel syndrome), and bilateral epicondilitus (and a bunch of other Greek words...). At tomorrow's staff meeting, give us a 10 minute (PPT) briefing on CTD’s:
• What ARE these things?
• What do we need to know?
• What causes them?
• What symptoms should we be aware of?
• And what can be done to help our pickers?"

8. As both HFE guru and safety supervisor, you have been tasked with developing a lighting plan for the aging plant. All areas now have high ceilings with dim, dirty, hanging fluorescent lights. Provide a detailed recommendation guideline for the office, QC labs, and manufacturing floor (HINT: three different lighting needs). Keep in mind the varying population and the varying tasks in these three areas. (narrative response)

9. Last one... short and sweet: Out of all of the topics we have addressed in the chapters we have read thus far -- which topic comes closest to HFE aspects of your taking this mid-term? (Not the guitar factory case, but your doing the exam itself)

Why? Can you suggest a corrective action or a countermeasure to improve an HFE aspect of this exam? (narrative response)

BONUS:

I have a Doctorate and 2 Master's degrees... doesn't make me smart - just means I have taken a lot of tests!! And I don't know about you -- but the list of stuff I think is important does not always match what the Prof thinks is important. So several years ago, I started adding a no-question question. HUH?

The Bonus Question is: What topic did you think is important in the text thus far - but I did not ask about? This is an "If I were you, Jim, I would have asked ________ question and then expected ___________ answer. Both your question and answer are scored based on the diving model:
• originality and
• degree of difficulty.

Ready?

Let the games begin.