Hewlett Packard

Hewlett Packard has a fearsome reputation, not only for its business strategy, people management and operational effectiveness but also in its overall approach to business. The Hewlett Packard corporate statement reads: “Objective: To honour our obligations to society by being an economic, intellectual and social asset to each nation and each community in which we operate”. With such a bold and all encompassing mission, Hewlett Packard could be forgiven if the minutia of every day service policy was overlooked. Not so, Hewlett Packard’s success is attributable to their attention to quality in operations, product and service.

In the 1990’s, the Hewlett Packard toner and ink cartridges division was experiencing a problem with the number of faulty toner cartridges being returned. There were around two thousand defective toner cartridges arriving back every month and the UK Hewlett Packard quality department knew the amount of returns were not consistent with their faulty rate – there must be another reason for this anomaly. The Hewlett Packard team decided to use a cause-effect, or Ishikawa diagrams to try and identify the source of the problem.

Three areas were identified:

1, Some customers were not sure of the correct procedure for changing the toner cartridge in their printer. Also, a lack of technical knowledge meant that some customers were unable to deal with minor problems themselves, leading them to assume a fault with the toner cartridge.

2, Some dealers were also lacking in technical expertise and were unable to offer the customer the level of support needed to resolve any minor problems.

3, Hewlett Packard had a no quibble returns policy and it seemed this was being abused. Empty toner and ink cartridges were being sent for refilling, with some being refilled up to five times. The quality of toner and methods used to refill the cartridges were not up to the standards of Hewlett Packard and consequentially, this was having an effect on the print quality and toner cartridge integrity.

The team at Hewlett Packard were able to use the Demming Cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act – or PDCA) to reduce the number of returns of toner cartridges to a minute proportion of the previous levels. Some of the changes included strengthening the returns policy, working with dealers to provide information and training on how to deal with minor print problems and improving the information available to customers so that they were more informed on how to use the product.

Carly Fiorina - Personal Ethics and Hewlett-Packard