6.2 Gray matters for the hughes aircraft case  (Page 10/14)

Dialogue

• Construct a dialogue in which Saia confronts LaRue about skipping the tests
• Address the following issues:
• Should Saia work with LaRue to identify tests that are not necessary and then have LaRue skip these?
• How should Saia and LaRue deal with the concerns that Quality Control has expressed about skipping the tests? Your first item here

Decision point three

Decision point three

• Margaret Goodearl works in a supervisory position in the environmental testing group at Hughes Aircraft. Her supervisor, Donald LaRue, is also the current supervisor for environmental testing. The group that LaRue and Goodearl together oversee test the chips that Hughes makes in order to determine that they would survive under the drastic environmental conditions they will likely face. Rigorous testing of the chips is the ideal, but some chips (the hot chips) get in line ahead of others. Goodearl has found out that over the last several months, many of these tests are being skipped. The reason: Hughes has fallen behind in the production schedule and Hughes upper management and Hughes customers have been applying pressure to get chip production and testing back on schedule. Moreover, LaRue and others feel that skipping certain tests doesn’t matter, since many of these chips are being used in systems that are in the testing phase, rather than ones that will be put into active use.

• A few months after Margaret Goodearl started her new position, she was presented with a difficult problem. One of the “girls” (the women and men in Environmental Testing at Hughes), Lisa Lightner, came to her desk crying. She was in tears and trembling because Donald LaRue had forcefully insisted that she pass a chip that she was sure had failed the test she was running.
• Lightner ran the hermeticity test on the chips. The chips are enclosed in a metal container, and one of the questions is whether the seal to that container leaks. From her test, she is sure that the chip is a “leaker”—the seal is not airtight so that water and corrosion will seep in over time and damage the chip. She has come to Goodearl for advice. Should she do what LaRue wants and pass a chip she knows is a leaker?

Dialogue

• Construct a dialogue that acts out Goodearl’s response to her knowledge that LaRue is regularly skipping tests
• Should Goodearl first talk directly to LaRue? What if he responds defensively?
• Should Goodearl go over LaRue’s head and discuss his skipping the tests with one of his supervisors? To whom should she go? How could she prepare for possible retaliation by LaRue? What should she know before doing this?
• If LaRue or another supervisor should fail to respond to the test skipping, should Goodearl continue responsible dissent or drop the issue (=nolo contendere)
• Could Goodearl not contend the issue but distance herself? (What if Hughes has no DPO procedure?)

Decision point four

Ruth Ibarra (from Quality Assurance) has seen Shirley Reddick resealing chips without the authorization stamp. Ibarra has asked Goodearl to find out what’s going on. When Goodearl asks LaRue, he replies, “None of your damn business.” Shortly after this, Gooderal receives a phone call from Jim Temple, one of her superiors, telling her to come to his office. Temple informs Goodearl in no uncertain terms that she needs to back down. “You are doing it again. You are not part of the team, running to Quality with every little problem.” When Goodearl insisted she did not “run to Quality” but Quality came to her, Temple replies, “Shape up and be part of the team if you want your job.”