Meridian Foods: Inspect More, or Fix the Line?
Meridian Foods manufactures packaged foods products in India, running 125,887 units a year.
Internal quality checks reject 5.2% of output, at a scrap and rework cost of about ₹855 a unit. A further 2.4% of shipped units come back under warranty, each costing roughly ₹1348 once field service, replacement and admin are counted.
Two proposals are on the table. Engineering wants ₹42 Cr of one-off capital to re-tool the station where most defects originate. Quality wants ₹18 Cr a year of additional inspection headcount to catch more before shipment.
The plant manager is measured on unit cost.
volume
- units per year
- 125887
proposals
- process retool one off cr
- 42
- additional inspection per year cr
- 18
external failure
- cost per claim
- 1348
- warranty claim rate pct
- 2.4
- warranty units per year
- 3021
internal failure
- defect rate pct
- 5.2
- defective units per year
- 6546
- scrap rework cost per unit
- 855
Advise the plant manager. Your answer should provide:
- Analysis — the total cost of poor quality today, split by where it is detected, and the return on each proposal.
- Risks — what each option does not solve.
- Recommendation — which to fund, with a payback period.
State any assumptions you make.
80 points, 60% to pass.
- recommendation20
- market analysis15
- risk assessment20
- financial analysis25
Reveal suggested structure
Cost of poor quality = internal failure + external failure. Compare prevention against detection on payback, and note that inspection does not reduce the defect rate.