Deutsche Allgemeinversicherung (DAV) Case Study Deutche Allegemeinversicherung Case

Determine the primary advantages of DAV using Statistical Process Control (SPC).

DAV has already pinpointed some area in operations and customer service that need attention. However, there are likely to be many more areas of weakness -- and areas of strength that DAV is not currently leveraging (McNamara, 2014). Establishing a single, integrated statistical process control (SPC) system can enable the company to target effort at proactively improving the company instead of inefficiently focusing on the effects and not the causes (McNamara, 2014). Implementing an SPC system -- setting up metrics dashboards -- in DAV will bring all the primary challenges into focus, illuminate the relationships between the component processes and practices, and provide a map to creating a more efficient and profitable company (McNamara, 2014).

2.Describe the major challenges and limitations in applying SPC to a service industry as opposed to a manufacturing industry.

People generate much more variability than machines or automated processes using robots, for example. The company's customer service representatives, agents, and adjusters are all customer facing in their work (McNamara, 2014). Every contact with a customer has the potential to delight that customer, but it also has the potential to create a problem for the customer or leave the customer with a negative sentiment regarding DAV. The SPC system would need to be configured to address the high rate of variability that people contribute to the overall data set.

As with any organizational change effort, bringing stakeholders...

A substantial challenge will be ensuring that management takes a highly visible role in the transition, championing the use of SPC as way to improve company profit and culture (McNamara, 2014). Importantly, the introduction of SPC must not be viewed as a threat to employees at any level; this will require a nuanced introduction and sufficiently monitored implementation of SPC throughout the company (McNamara, 2014).
3.Prioritize the problems facing Annette Kluck, as described in the Measurement Challenges section of the case, from the most to the least serious.

a. Describing the purpose and scope of the SPC project - The first challenge is to recognize that SPC is one component of a broader system known as Total Quality Management, and that both Six Sigma and SPC are approaches with their own set of tools that when combined, are the foundation to a powerful, effective improvement system ("Statistical Process Quality," 2014).

b. Determining what to measure -- At this juncture, it seems that Kluck is not yet certain about what she wants to include in the system. The literature is replete with examples of non-manufacturing companies that have applied quality management programs to their enterprises (Newman, 2014). As a point of reference, for instance, the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award is a method and a competitive program for improving quality assurance in healthcare, education, non-profits, and government -- all service organizations (Newman, 2014). With a bit of research (and possibly, the help of the consultant she hired), Kluck should be able…