You be the judge.

[NuclearNed]

Suppose your company is in the business of making little blue toy trucks.

Specifically, you have a machine that makes the blue toy trucks. In one end goes the raw materials, and out the other end the completed blue toy trucks emerge. Every now and then, the machine malfunctions and a red toy truck is produced. If fewer than 3% of the trucks produced are red, then the machine is considered to be working properly. The machine has worked properly in this fashion for well over a year.

An employee is reassigned to work in the area with the machine. This employee has a probable cause to be very disgruntled. The very next day, the machine begins spitting out red toy trucks. 45% of all toy trucks produced are red. It should be noted that this machine is easily accessible by the majority of the workforce.

What, if any, would your assumptions be?

 

[nwfsnake]

Col Mustard with the Candlestick in the library.

 

[dullard]

I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).

 

[2Xtreme21]

Sounds like a homework problem from chapter 7 of my statistics book.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: dullard
I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).

yeap.

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: dullard
I'd assume you have a bad machine design (that either failed or allows tampering), you have insufficient oversight and bad management, and you have an employee problem (whether or not this employee caused the red trucks you still have a problem with a disgruntled employee).

I agree, but just to play devil's advocate...

Most industrial machines have to have some sort of human interaction, and therefore are subject to tampering/sabotage. Employees can't be watched every single minute of their day, so there will always be time for them to perform dastardly deeds, if that is what they want to do.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: nwfsnake
Col Mustard with the Candlestick in the library.

You sunk my battleship!


Seriously:

Let's see. Red trucks = 45%. X = 3%... Wait... does they employee take a train to work? If so, from which direction and how fast does it travel?

 

[FoBoT]

maybe you just monitor him 100% of a single day and see if the rate goes back down to < 3%

you don't have to monitor him for very long to statistically prove he is what is causing the change from under 3% defects to 50% defects

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
maybe you just monitor him 100% of a single day and see if the rate goes back down to < 3%

you don't have to monitor him for very long to statistically prove he is what is causing the change from under 3% defects to 50% defects

Yep. If you find out that he's responsible for the red trucks, you need to fire him and sue him for the lost blue truck production. Unfortunately you can't stone him to death with red trucks. Damned Bill of Rights.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

if my machine making little blue warheads starts making littel red warheads, I'm going home and digging a bomb shelter...

 

[Ramma2]

Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

Maybe the disgruntled worker fell into the machine's raw ingredients collector and got mangled into a bloody pulp... hence the sudden increase in "red" trucks?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Ramma2
Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.

Either your humor is drier than toast or the point just flew over your head and crashed into the moon...

 

[mwmorph]

I'd start selling a line of limited edition red toy trucks.

Machine + disgruntled employee + marketing team = profit?

 

[Mucho]

You guys still on strike?

 

[Jeeebus]

isn't it possible that Skynet simply became self-aware?

 

[ryan256]

That you have color blind employees that can't tell blue plastic from red plastic.

 

[Toasthead]

does it still make 45% red trucks on his days off?

 

[VTHodge]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: Ramma2
Well if the machine is supposed to make blue trucks, then stop putting in red plastic and/or dye.

That or the raw blue plastic is in mislabled containers. I'd contact your plastic supplier.

Either your humor is drier than toast or the point just flew over your head and crashed into the moon...

It's the toast one . . . I laughed.

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
I'd start selling a line of limited edition red toy trucks.

Machine + disgruntled employee + marketing team = profit?

:thumbsup:

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
Suppose your company is in the business of making little blue toy trucks.

Specifically, you have a machine that makes the blue toy trucks. In one end goes the raw materials, and out the other end the completed blue toy trucks emerge. Every now and then, the machine malfunctions and a red toy truck is produced. If fewer than 3% of the trucks produced are red, then the machine is considered to be working properly. The machine has worked properly in this fashion for well over a year.

An employee is reassigned to work in the area with the machine. This employee has a probable cause to be very disgruntled. The very next day, the machine begins spitting out red toy trucks. 45% of all toy trucks produced are red. It should be noted that this machine is easily accessible by the majority of the workforce.

What, if any, would your assumptions be?

Quality control should have shut down the machine for inspection after a threshhold of 6% of the total output was erroniously red. Your workflow critical processes suck.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

I would assume the marketing department should get on selling red trucks as the new fad.

 

[BigJ]

I'd close the whole damn plant down and build one overseas.

 

[JRich]

If it started spitting out green planes would they take off?

 

[SVT Cobra]

I think you need a jump to conclusions mat to solve this.