The case discusses about the Project Greenlight at Polaroid.

It took five
months for the team to come up with final plan, which included three
key elements:
1. Statistical Process Control principle to be adopted
2. Tools were given to process operators, to make disposition
decision
3. Quality control audits
In earlier process, if an operator determined a machine was operating
outside upper or lower control limits, the protocol to be followed was to
immediately shutdown the process and call for maintenance.
Maintenance technician jobs was to clean, recalibrate and restart the
machine. If eight consecutive mean values are not in control limit or
the trend is continuous, maintenance is to be called to investigate and
recalibrate the machine.
Outcome of the New process:
Before Project Greenlight, Polaroid had the arrangement to move its
quality control endeavors from a QC review procedure to an
administrator based quality control handle. While it was anything but
difficult to persuade upper administration of the cost investment funds
that would be accomplished through lessened inspecting, it was harder
to demonstrate that Project Greenlight would not surrender quality.
Taking after the execution of Project Greenlight, audit uncovered that
the defect rate had expanded by 10 times their recorded levels, from
1% to 10%. Then again, defect rates measured by production
operators recounted an alternate story. Their outcomes showed that
deformity rates had declined to just 50% of their historic level, from
1.0% to 0.5%. This contention of data must be ascribed to the
Statistical analysis utilized by the two diverse review groups.
Previous Process
 Pod Weight: X bar chart
2.84
2.83
2.82
2.81
2.8
2.79
2.78
2.77
2.76
2.75
2.74
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Process Mean Mean Upper Level

Lower Level

Finger height: X bar chart

2.25
2.2
2.15
2.1
2.05
2
1.95
1.9
1.85
1.8
1.75
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Process Mean Mean Upper Level

Lower Level

Greenlight Process
 Pod Weight
2.840
2.830
2.820
2.810
2.800
2.790
2.780
2.770
2.760
2.750
2.740

Mean Process Mean UCL

LCL

Finger Height
2.50

2.00

1.50

1.00

0.50

0.00

Mean Process Mean UCL

LCL

The following factors are responsible for mismatch:

1. The tweaking of machine by operator to achieve maximum
production by going beyond the limits
2. Many defects identified by QC do not concern the customer such
as excess reagent
3. Quality improvement should be done through improvement in
process or machinery
4. Operators were not recording the defective readings
5. SPC shows if process is within control, it doesnt ensure/improve
quality. It is possible that the initial processes were not designed
properly
Pod weight was in control. Finger height process was uncontrolled
several times.