| Course | MT475 Quality Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 790 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT475 Unit 6
From Recall Back to Prevention: An MT475 Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on the Galaxy Note 7
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT475: Quality Management
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The classmates and Overlook Skylight Company are composite; the recall facts and the sources cited are real.
The Facts, Kept Narrow
Samsung began a recall of the Galaxy Note 7 in September 2016 after reports of phones overheating and catching fire. Replacement phones, supplied with batteries from a different manufacturer, then began overheating too, and Samsung ended production in October. In January 2017 the company announced that its investigation had found two different battery flaws, one in each supplier's batteries, as the causes (Samsung Electronics, 2017). I keep deliberately to those facts because the seminar's retellings included cost figures I could not source, and a reflection built on guessed numbers would teach me the wrong lesson about where the money went.
Sorting the Costs
Our seminar sorted the costs we discussed into the four quality cost categories. Prevention costs were almost absent from the discussion: we knew little about how much Samsung spent on battery design reviews or design margins. Appraisal costs included the testing of batteries and phones before shipment. Internal failure costs included scrapped inventory. External failure costs, the recall, the replacements, the second recall, the end of the product and the damage to the brand, dominated every estimate anyone offered.
The Claim I Brought
I argued, with some confidence, that supplier quality caused the failure. Two battery suppliers each shipped flawed cells, and the phone maker relied on them. To me the lesson was to audit suppliers more strictly. Juran and Godfrey (1999) describe supplier quality as a large share of a product's quality, and I thought the case proved it.
The Question That Moved Me
A classmate, Andre, who tests medical devices for a living, asked one question: why were the replacement batteries not tested harder before the replacement phones shipped? The company already knew that batteries had failed once. It changed suppliers and shipped again in a matter of weeks. Andre's point was that the second failure was not a supplier problem alone; it was an appraisal decision, a choice about how much testing was enough when the cost of being wrong had just been demonstrated.
Then he went further, and the room went quiet for a moment, because several of us had made the same assumption I had. If two different suppliers' batteries both failed, he asked, what did they have in common? Both had to fit a very thin phone with little space around the battery. Design margins, how much room the battery had to swell and how much the design tolerated variation, are prevention decisions made long before any supplier ships a cell.
I had blamed the suppliers; the harder question was why a design with so little margin shipped twice without harder testing.
What I Revised
I now think the costs belong further upstream than I placed them. The external failure costs were the visible result, but the decisions that mattered were about appraisal, testing replacement batteries thoroughly before a second launch, and about prevention, leaving enough design margin that normal manufacturing variation in a cell would not become a fire. Supplier quality still mattered, but treating it as the cause let the design and testing decisions off too easily, and it would have led me to recommend the wrong kind of fix. Crosby (1979) argued that quality problems are usually created by management decisions about requirements and systems, not by the workers or suppliers who carry them out, and the second recall fits that argument better than mine did.
The Lesson at Overlook
The case connects directly to Overlook Skylight Company, which I have studied all term. In Unit 4, a spike in water-test failures on day 11 traced to one supplier's glass lot with a thin secondary seal. My first instinct, as with Samsung, was to blame the supplier and audit it harder. The Note 7 discussion makes me ask two more questions. Does Overlook's incoming inspection test glass seals in a way that would catch a thin seal before the glass is built into skylights? And does the skylight's design depend on a seal thickness at the edge of what suppliers can reliably make? If the answers are no and yes, then Overlook, like Samsung, has an appraisal and design problem as well as a supplier one. Unit 7's supplier review should test both. I would also want to know how quickly Overlook would recognize a second bad lot, since the Note 7's second failure did more damage than the first precisely because the warning signs had already been seen once.
References
Crosby, P. B. (1979). Quality is free: The art of making quality certain. McGraw-Hill.
Juran, J. M., & Godfrey, A. B. (Eds.). (1999). Juran's quality handbook (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Samsung Electronics. (2017, January 23). Samsung Electronics announces cause of Galaxy Note7 incidents in press conference [Press release].
Reading the MT 475 Unit 6 instructions
MT475's Unit 6 seminar reflection asks how a discussion of a quality failure changed your analysis. Keep the facts narrow and sourced, avoiding cost figures you cannot verify. Sort the costs discussed into the quality cost categories, which often shows where the session's attention went. State the claim you brought, with its reasoning. Identify the classmate by role and say precisely what their question exposed. Revise your view where the evidence requires, and say what the revision changes about where costs and responsibility belong. Apply the lesson to the organization you have studied in earlier units. About 550 words in four first-person paragraphs, with a short table, is common, and sections running a written option apply the same steps to a posted case. Sources should include an official account of the failure and the quality readings that shaped your revision.
How this MT475 Unit 6 example is built
The reflection begins with the recall facts and a note about why it avoids unsourced figures, citing Samsung's 2017 announcement. A section sorts the discussed costs into four categories and notes the empty prevention column. The writer's claim follows: supplier quality caused the failure, with Juran and Godfrey on supplier quality's share. A classmate's two questions then move the analysis, first about testing replacement batteries and second about what both suppliers' batteries shared, under a highlighted line on the shift in blame. The revision places the decisive costs in appraisal and design margins, citing Crosby on management decisions. The last section applies the lesson to Overlook's thin-sealed glass lot, asking whether incoming inspection tests seal thickness and whether the design depends on a seal at the edge of suppliers' ability.
MT475 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
Recall reflections are marked on factual care and the quality of the revision. Instructors credit narrow, sourced facts over dramatic retellings. Sorting costs into categories shows the student can apply the course's framework to a real case. The starting claim should be stated fairly, and the challenge described precisely. A revision that moves responsibility upstream, toward appraisal and prevention, with reasons, is often rewarded as evidence of learning the course's central idea. Applying the lesson to the organization studied in earlier units shows transfer. Honesty about what the writer does not know, such as prevention spending, is valued. First-person writing that focuses on the analysis rather than on the drama of the recall carries the communication marks.
Common MT475 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Weak Unit 6 reflections retell the recall dramatically with unsourced cost figures. Another frequent problem blames a supplier or a worker and stops there, missing the system decisions behind the failure. Students often list cost categories without applying them to the case. The challenge from the seminar is commonly described vaguely, so the reader cannot see what changed. Applications to the course organization tend to be generic. Before submitting, check every fact against an official or reliable source, and remove any figure you cannot trace. Then write one sentence naming where you first placed responsibility and one naming where you place it now. If the two sentences are the same, explain why the discussion did not move you, using the strongest challenge you heard.
Get an MT475 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
Share the recall or case your Unit 6 seminar discussed, your notes, or the case questions set for students who submit in writing, along with the rubric. The composite reflection returned states the facts narrowly with sources, places each cost in its quality cost category and records how the writer's view moved upstream. The first custom sample is free, usually within 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT475 Unit 6 questions, answered
Which recalls work well for an MT475 seminar reflection?
Ones with public, well-documented findings about the cause, so the cost can be traced with evidence rather than speculation. Consumer electronics, automotive and food recalls often have regulator notices and company statements that make this possible. If the seminar named the case, use it; if the choice is yours, pick one where the root cause was published.
Where do recall costs fall among the quality cost categories?
Refunds, replacements, recall logistics, lost sales and damage to reputation are external failure. Scrapped inventory caught before shipping is internal failure. Inspection and testing are appraisal; design reviews, supplier development and training are prevention. The pattern the seminar usually looks for is heavy external failure paired with thin prevention, which is where the argument about moving money upstream begins.
What if my view did not change during the seminar?
Then say what the strongest challenge was and why your position held, with the evidence that held it. A reflection is not required to report a conversion, but it should show your view was tested. Instructors tend to distrust reflections where every point was already understood, so naming even a small refinement is usually worthwhile.
Where can I find a free MT475 Unit 6 sample paper?
The complete MT475 Unit 6 reflection is printed here, tracing the Galaxy Note 7 recall from external failure back to appraisal and design decisions.
What did the classmate's question change in the MT475 Unit 6 sample?
It moved the writer from blaming suppliers to asking why replacement batteries were not tested harder and why a design with so little margin shipped twice.