meeting with the department heads named above. The strategy was to develop a plan to handle the crisis and discover a long-term solution to preventing such crises in future. Metcaff was confused and angry. He was thankful no one using the axe was injured but admitted the flaw was a marketing and public relations disaster. He demanded an explanation, arguing that he felt the axe represented the “latest and greatest” technology. He was also confused because there had never been such a design flaw in White Diamond’s mountaineering axes in the history of the company.
Marketing manager Maria Kraner said fervently, “If customers see this as meaning our axes are of poor quality, the whole business may be jeopardized!” Stan Williams argued that his sales reps were throwing fits, with long lists of backorders for an axe that is now considered of poor quality! He warned everyone that they knew how the industry worked “Rumors about tool failures and accidents get around quick!” Production manager Jim Brown blamed design “The cause of the axe’s failure is its design! Its nice to be innovative but no so innovative the damn thing doesn’t work!”
CEO Metcaff realized tempers were getting out of hand. “One minute. I don’t want this to become nothing but finger-pointing. Let’s keep focused and deal with the objectives at hand. This is a company-wide problem.” Designer Brainard contributed the failure to “major bad luck, just was we were going to take the competition by storm with a good ice-climbing season predicted.”
Kraner reminded everyone that lead time had been cut on the project in order to have at least an extra year of sales time before other manufacturers could copy the unique design of the White Prophet. John Berkow argued more than a quick fix was needed. As head of research and development he told the customer service manager “I appreciate the urgent need that you’re feeling ...