Final Exam- MSM6645
The reasons for benchmarking are many and varied. Identify the statement below that can help organizations consider improvements based on benchmarking:
A benchmarking assessment program should have plans in place to use the data generated, and should use the results to support an improvement strategy
In continuous improvement (CI), the primary focus is on improving processes so organizations can give customers what they want the first time, every time. Select the statement below that is correct.
A company focusing on CI places greater emphasis on customer service, team work, and process improvement
The Pareto Principal was popularized by Dr. Juran. The Pareto principle provides a visual method of identifying which problems are the most significant. Identify the best answer about how a Pareto chart works from the answers below:
All of these
During a benchmarking process, a company compares its performance against a set of standards or against the performance of a best in class company. Identified the statement below that is not correct when referring to benchmarking.
An effectiveness benchmark verifies that the company is compliant with requirements and has a quality manual
The present concepts about chaos and systems theory originally emerged from:
Ancient Greece
Dr. Deming, Dr. Juran, Steve Jobs, and Henry Ford, among others, have all provided definitions of quality. Select the individual or organization listed below who provided the most complete definition of quality which demonstrated how difficult it is to define quality for a particular product or service.
Armand Feigenbaum
Knowledge Management is part of Criteria 4 (4.2). The information in this Criteria focuses on how to build and manage organizational knowledge. Identify the item below that does not apply to building and managing organizational knowledge:
Creating surveys for customers of competitors
Five questionable assumptions about direct control could include:
Direct control may have ethics to consider
When applying the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle to an audit, the audit itself would be conducted in which cycle?
Do
Modern quality principles have evolved over time. The individual recognized as creating the need for quality control was:
Eli Whitney
Dr. Armand Feigenbaum's forward-thinking approach encouraged companies to
Emphasize improving customer satisfaction and determine the costs associated with failing
Workforce Engagement and performance (Criteria 5.2) addresses how an organization supports a culture represented by open communication, high performance and an engaged workforce. Identify the item below that does not support engagement:
Empowerment is restricted to team leaders
Dr. Walter Shewart is known for being the first to encourage the use of statistics to identify, monitor and remove variation from repetitive processes. His work identified:
How to adapt control charts from other processes
Select the response that includes information about how to engage customers and build relationships (Criteria 3.2, Customer Engagement):
Identifying key customer support requirements and complaint data
The final step of PDSA requires action to use the new and better procedures and prevent a return to old methods and repeat past failures. This is accomplished by:
Implementing methods to provide follow-up checks in case of problem recurrences or lapses into previous methods
In Strategy, Criteria 2, what are some of the areas that organizations must consider?
Innovation, work systems and core competencies
Quality standards are often used with continuous improvement. Identify the correct statement(s) below about different quality standards:
LEAN, which identified seven forms of waste
The Organizational Profile is the starting point for self-assessment. It accomplishes several things, identify the item or items below that belong(s) in the Organizational Profile:
Mission, vision, values
When correctly collected and analyzed, statistical information can be "illuminating", but misuses of statistics have led people to distrust them completely. Identify the CORRECT statement below:
Misuses of statistics have led people to distrust them completely.
The larger the deviation from the desired value, the greater the loss. Select the statement below that is correct.
None of these
The Voice of the Customer, Criteria 3, identifies multiple types of information available that may be collected to improve organizational performance. Select some the item that does not belong:
Opinions about the effectiveness of organizational leadership
In the Baldrige Framework, Criteria 6 (Operations), the primary focus is how an organization designs, manages and improves key products and work processes. Identify the item below that may not belong:
Partner with suppliers or form alliances with multiple organization
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) provides access to knowledge about quality tools and techniques essential for financial success in organizations. ASQ also
Provides job listings and opportunities for certification and training
Dr. Juran used three managerial processes:
Quality improvement, quality planning, quality control
Dr. Philip Crosby identified five erroneous assumptions about quality. Identify the one below that does not belong:
Quality means satisfied if customer expectations are met the second time
Of the three systems (MBNQA, ISO, 6S) in chapter 3, which would be considered a total quality management system?
The Baldrige Framework
Identify the correct statement to represent a complete system based on the discussion in week 3 and your text:
The MBNQA/Baldrige Framework which represents a total quality management system
Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa was one of the first individuals to encourage total quality control. He is known for advocating the use of quality tools, and specifically known for developing
The cause-and-effect diagram
The butterfly effect is associated with chaos. The basic concept behind the butterfly effect proposes that - using a weather example -
a butterfly in one part of the world, while flying, can somehow effect weather in another part of the world
Establishing a baseline provides information about performance of a process similar to a snapshot in time. A baseline is useful when:
a process team wants to compare the "before and after" picture once improvements are implemented in the process
A confidence interval is best described as:
a testing technique that can determine how well the subgroup average approximates the population mean
The mean is calculated by:
adding all values together and then dividing by the number of values
A cumulative frequency distribution
adds the values from each preceding cell to the next cell
Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa promoted a system (Ishikawa's system) that includes six fundamentals that form the Japanese quality paradigm. Identify the item below that does not belong:
all employees do not need to have an understanding of the objectives or the business reasons as long as their tasks are specific and defined
A poor KPI
all of these
According to your textbook, the potential economic benefits of the Baldrige award to the US economy is approaching $25 billion because:
all of these
Dr. Deming's philosophies relied heavily on management involvement, continuous improvement, statistical analysis, goal setting and communication. He believed that
all of these
Dr. Shewart's control charts have advanced process improvement efforts for nearly every type of industry in spite of differing opinions about:
all of these
Problems that can emerge in strategic planning could be:
all of these
Process capability refers to the ability of a process to produce products or provide services capable of meeting the specifications set by the customer or designer. Identify the statement(s) below which is/are the most accurate about process capability:
all of these
Summers recommends that management participate in recognition and identification of problems because this provides management an opportunity to be directly involved in the problem-solving process. Such a team should have, as recommended by Summers:
all of these
Control charts serve two purposes, they are decision-making tools and problem-solving tools. Select the most accurate statement about control charts from the items below:
analysis of a control chart shows how that process performs over time
Quality costs typically originate from:
anywhere within a company
Alignment is a term used frequently in the Baldrige Framework. Alignment refers to:
assuring policies, procedures, efforts and other areas are supporting organizational goals
An audit typically involves comparisons, checks of compliance, and discovery of discrepancies. Audits should never be subjective and need to be conducted in a professional manner. Auditors should always
be professional, unbiased and undistorted
The best place to "catch" a defective product or service and to reduce associated costs with errors is:
before it ever reaches the customer
An affinity diagram helps organize when the problem is disorganized or overwhelming. This diagram is best used in -
brainstorming
The Process Improvement Model asks multiple questions that need to be answered in the problem-solving process. The first step is to recognize that a problem exists; what types of tools are best for this first step?
brainstorming
The primary focus of quality function deployment (QFD) is to:
bring the voice of the customer into the process of designing and developing a product or service
The difference between chance, or 'common cause' and assignable causes can be explained as:
chance causes consistently affect the process and performance day after day, whereas assignable causes are not part of process on a regular basis
Control limits are considered the voice of the process, and -
control limits are a prediction of the variation that the process will exhibit in the near future
Dr. Shewart identified two sources of variation in a process. Those two sources are
controlled variation and uncontrolled variation
The cost of quality refers to:
costs that would disappear if every activity were performed without defects every time
The purpose of the ISO standards is to facilitate the multinational exchange of products and services by providing clear set of quality system requirements. Documentation is a key component. Identify the statement below which is not correct:
documentation often takes the form of standard operating procedures (SOP)
The overall objective of Environmental Management, ISO 14000, is:
encourage environmental protection
This world-view about chaos, motion, the gravity, etc. proposed that:
everything can be broken into parts based on a mechanistic plan
When designing experiments, it is important to remember
experimental design looks at factors to be tested and the values at which those factors are tested
Possible benefits of defect-free processes and products can include but are not limited to -
faster cycle times, a decrease in production costs less wasted material
In service industries, costs of quality play an important role. These can include but may not be limited to:
faulty systems, document mismanagement, inaccuracy, inexperience
The median is calculated by:
finding the number that has an equal number of values to the left and to the right
To clearly define the problem in the Process Improvement Model, it is necessary to first
identify customers, processes, and what the customer wants
Creating a QFD requires interaction with the customer. Identify the correct response below that lists some components necessary to develop a QFD:
identify what the customer wants, rank these by importance, evaluate your company against competitors, determine the operational goals for technical requirements
In the PDSA cycle, which of the following audit activities would be part of the Act cycle?
implement action plan
Dr. Genichi Taguchi is also known for his work in experimental design. His methods help eliminate insignificant elements in a product or process. The first three basic steps are selecting the process or product to be studied; identify the important variables; reduce variation on the important variables to redesign, process improvement and tolerancing. The final step is:
increase (open) tolerances on unimportant variables
A lagging indicator
indicates past success
The term 'Six Sigma' is basically about
individual failure rates approaching zero
The difference between deductive and inductive statistics is:
inductive statistics deal with a limited amount of data or a representative sample of a population
A QFD has two principal parts, a horizontal component and a vertical component. The difference between these two components is:
information related to the customer and technical information that responds to the customer inputs
Control charts can be revised and new limits calculated under two conditions, when no out of control signals have been seen or when new operating conditions exist. Identify the steps taken to revise charts:
interpret the original charts to determine lack of control; isolate the cause, take corrective action, revise the chart
A histogram -
is a graphical summary of the frequency distribution
Select the correct statement from the options below about variation, which means being different from one instance to the next:
is usually described as the difference between the specified target dimension and the actual part dimension
Quality control (QC) goes beyond inspection by using four activities. Identify the activity below that does not belong:
isolates and rejects substandard parts
Value stream process mapping is similar to process mapping, but the difference is:
it identifies ways of simplifying the process, system or procedure
In example 4.1, beginning on page 66 in the textbook, the automobile manufacturer seeks to find the root cause for smoke/odor problems in new vehicles. In conducting a root cause analysis, management should:
let the problem-solving team investigate so the root cause can be determined and documented
The need for monitoring quality grew as mass production expanded. Inspection involves:
measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more characteristics of a product or service
Symmetry, skewness, and kurtosis all refer to the shape of data when plotted or graphed. In a skewed distribution,
most of the data are grouped to the left or the right side
Good audits can potentially answer a variety of questions and provide opportunities to look for solutions. Find the statement below about audits that is not correct:
none of these
Select statement below that does not represent a potential benchmark opportunity:
none of these
The Six Sigma process is sometimes described as DMAIC, which represents:
none of these
The difference between a histogram and a frequency diagram is:
on a histogram, data are grouped in cells
Tolerance limits, which show the changes in the dimension of a quality characteristic, means that
parts manufactured between the tolerance or specification limits are considered acceptable
The least costly approach to providing a quality product or service is:
preventing the problem before manufacture or serving the customer
Select the statement below that is a good example of lessons learned about quality costs:
quality cost can serve as a basis or a benchmark for measuring the success of internal improvements
Identify the activity or activities below as the best example(s) of prevention costs:
quality systems audit
Statistical process control seeks to limit the variation being produced or in the service being provided because:
reducing variation is important because any reductions will also reduce losses
ISO 9000 focuses on record keeping and functional requirements; this
supports the development of a quality management system
Dr. Armand Feigenbaum predicted that customers would be more demanding and will shift their value expectations to put more pressure on businesses. As a result, businesses must try a more
systematic process of managing that recognizes sustained growth and demands improvements in customer satisfaction, cost and human resource effectiveness
Dr. Joseph M. Juran played a significant role in rebuilding Japan following World War II, as did Dr. Deming. Dr. Juran's approach focused on creating awareness of the need to improve and making quality improvement part of each job. His approach emphasizes:
team problem-solving
Thriving on chaos, according to Tom Peters, means
the ability to adapt constantly
Affinity diagrams help organize the output of brainstorming sessions. The best use of the affinity diagram is:
the issue is complex or difficult to understand
When gathering sample data, it is important to follow appropriate guidelines. Identify appropriate guidelines from the list below:
the larger the subgroup size the more sensitive the chart
Statistical process control is based on the use of samples taken from a population of items. The central limit theorem enables conclusions to be drawn from the sample data. This means:
the mean of the sample averages will approximate the mean of the population
Criticisms of the Six Sigma methodology can include
this methodology does not offer anything new and focuses on defects instead of improvement
Systems thinking was a critical component of Dr. Deming's work; with the systems approach Dr. Deming believed people would understand that they are like an orchestra rather than a soloist. Select the option(s) that best explains systems theory from the items below:
those who understand systems create alignments between customer needs, requirements, expectations and their products and services
Innovative companies place great value on customer comments and experiences. Identify some of the key components that support innovation in CI:
understand customer needs
Audits are designed to evaluate activities, practices, records or policies of an organization. An audit should be:
used to provide companies with information concerning performance and areas for improvement
The primary focus of ISO 9000 need for excellent record keeping This is true because:
usually the product has left the manufacturing facility or the service has been performed so only records can serve as evidence of product or service
Variation exists in all processes, even though it may be difficult to determine without precise measuring instruments. Select the most accurate statement below about variations:
variation can occur in the product if produced at different times during the day; if approximately produced at the same time; or within a single item or surface
A process is in control only when:
when process centering in the amount of variation in the process remains constant over time
The greatest cost of quality is incurred by the company when
when the nonconforming product or service reaches the customer
