Quality Management Strategies Test 2-4 🟡 Review

Which of the following best describes a competitive advantage?

A capability valued by customers that gives a firm an edge over its rivals A competitive advantage is a capability that customers value, such as short delivery lead time or high product quality, and that gives an organization an edge against its competition.

A company's attempt to get to know its customers by contacting them to discuss their needs, wants, and expectations is done in a _________.

A focus group is used when a firm wants to gather customers together and get feedback on ideas and products to better meet customer needs.

Managers at Taco Rico, a national fast-food chain, are implementing the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle to ensure consistent food and service. So far, the managers have determined that the length of time that orders are filled at the drive-through window is too long. New procedures for taking food orders have been implemented and changes have been documented. What should occur next in the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle?

Analyze the new process to determine if orders are being filled faster

________ are incurred when a company evaluates customer satisfaction.

Appraisal costs are the costs incurred to measure quality, assess customer satisfaction, and inspect and test products. Appraisal costs could include the cost of conducting a customer satisfaction survey or testing new notebook computers to be sure they will operate as intended.

During a routine physical exam, Dr. Dodd politely answers Mark's questions about heart disease. Dr. Dodd discusses the benefits of exercise and a healthy diet as well as medications that are available to prevent heart disease. Dr. Dodd seems confident and knowledgeable. Which service quality dimension does this example best illustrate?

Assurance Assurance is the service quality dimension that refers to knowledge and courtesy and the ability to convey trust and confidence. Dr. Dodd is courteous and exhibits knowledge about heart disease prevention.

Which is the most important in the strategic planning process?

Creating action plans for accomplishing organizational goals The strategic planning process provides a path toward the organization's objectives. This path includes setting goals and developing action plans for achieving the goals.

Modern companies that rely on a philosophy of total quality management (TQM) primarily use ______feedback to measure quality.

Customer TQM companies base decisions about quality on facts and data, such as the number of customer complaints or the degree of customer satisfaction.

If a firm measures quality from an external orientation, which of the following is most relevant?

Customer needs Quality with an external orientation focuses on consistently meeting or exceeding customers' needs and expectations.

Which quality management activity clarifies the task to accomplish?

Defining the problem is the first quality management tool to implement as it clarifies the specific task that must be accomplished, such as reducing warranty costs.

Which quality management strategy involves giving decision-making authority to front-line workers?

Employee empowerment

Which of the following best explains the primary purpose of documentation and standardization?

Ensuring that tasks are performed with consistency The purposes of documentation and standardization are to ensure that within a given process, each person performs a task the same way every time. As better ways are found, the documentation and standardization are changed to promote continuous improvement.

True or False An order fulfillment system manages customer in several steps. One of these steps is marketing.

False Obtaining customers' orders, entering orders into the organization's information system, and delivering the order are parts of the order fulfillment process. Marketing is not a part of this process.

True or False. When collecting data for statistical process control, a histogram is the primary tool for recording raw data at the location where data is generated.

False Check sheets, not histograms, are the means used to record data points in real time at the site where the data is generated. Histograms are used to analyze and interpret data.

True or False. According to Dr. W. Edwards Deming, in a manufacturing environment, quality improves when management establishes very specific work quotas.

False Deming advocated the elimination of work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. He asserted that leadership not quotas would improve quality.

True or False. For the benchmarking process to provide useful information, the two companies being compared must be direct competitors in the same industry.

False In the benchmarking process, a company compares its performance to the performance of other companies. Those other companies need not be competitors, nor be within the same industry. Instead, the purpose of benchmarking is to set a standard based upon the company that is recognized as the best at a certain activity.

True or False. In an organization that fully implements total quality management, the quality control department maintains sole responsibility for product and service quality.

False Organizations that embrace TQM have realized that everyone must accept responsibility, from the company CEO to the person who cleans the parking lot. Therefore, the QC department does not have sole responsibility for quality.

True or false. Although the quantitative tools and techniques used in Six Sigma to reduce defects are highly effective, the Six Sigma methodology lacks a useful qualitative component.

False Six Sigma uses both quantitative and qualitative techniques and tools.

True or False. According to Genichi Taguchi, high levels of quality are achieved when a company closely inspects products after they are manufactured and before they are sold to customers.

False Taguchi argues that quality must be designed into a product. His point is that quality cannot be achieved through inspections after the good is made or the service is provided.

True or False. The first step in the Six Sigma methodology involves measuring current processes to determine the frequency of problems.

False The first step in Six Sigma is defining the problem or improvement opportunity. The second step involves measuring current process performance.

After analyzing the measurements, which of the following LEAST likely caused the firm's warranty costs to increase?

Flexible box straps An analysis determines that packaging straps are too tight and not flexible enough.

Which of the following is an activity of both service producers and goods producers?

Focusing on product improvement Service-producing organizations and goods-producing organizations have many similarities, including a concern for product improvements. A service firm may strive to improve dependability while a goods firm may work to offer more product features.

A business process has which of the following unique characteristics that make it key in any organization?

It is cross-functional. The work activities outlined in a business process are agreed upon by all the functional areas in a business.

Which of the following is a driving force in the global job market as job markets for manufacturing, technology, engineering, and management positions shift between countries?

Labor costs As labor costs increased in the United States, jobs shifted to other countries with lower costs of labor. Now that the cost of the workforce is increasing in India and China, jobs are shifting to other countries, including back to the United States.

Which statistical process control (SPC) tool would be most useful to get a visual representation of the most frequent occurrences in descending order among all data points?

Pareto chart A Pareto chart represents data values in a descending order to visualize the most frequent occurrences.

The ___________ stage of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle involves identifying opportunities for improvement.

Plan In the "plan" stage of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, tools are used to identify problems or opportunities for improvement and then a plan is developed to make changes.

Which of the following is an example of a problem-solving tool that can be used in continuous improvement?

Process flow analysis Companies could look at the flow of paperwork in a particular job or function to reduce errors.

Which of the following is LEAST likely to be a characteristic of team problem solving?

Resolving issues quickly Team problem solving is not necessarily a quick process due to the number of people involved who may not always be in agreement.

______uses methods and tools to determine the stability of a manufacturing process and reduce the number of product defects.

Statistical process control (SPC) is the use of statistical methods to determine when a process that produces a good or service is getting close to producing an unacceptable level of defects.

True or False. According to Deming, today's organizations benefit from training employees to use statistical process control tools.

True Deming emphasized the importance of training employees to use the tools of statistical process control.

True or False. According to Philip Crosby, most firms underestimate their failure costs and would benefit from evaluating all costs of quality.

True Philip Crosby argues in his 1979 book, Quality Is Free, that failure costs are much greater than most companies had thought. Crosby is also recognized for emphasizing the importance of considering all costs of quality.

Quality function deployment refers to a method of transforming customer needs and expectations into product design characteristics.

True Quality function deployment (QFD) is a method that can be used to transform customer needs and expectations into specific design characteristics through a series of grids or matrices.

Organizations with flexible operations respond quickly and inexpensively to the changing needs of customers.

True When flexibility is inherent in operations, an organization is able to respond rapidly and inexpensively to changing customer needs.

True or False. Understanding how customers use products and services helps companies to develop new innovations that improve and achieve external quality.

True knowing how customers function and how they use a product or service can help companies better understand what and how new ideas and innovations could help them. By addressing customer needs, a company can improve its external quality.

The Six Sigma "define" phase uses what tool to provide an overview of the entire process and identify what is necessary to meet customer needs?

Value stream mapping In the "define" stage of Six Sigma, value stream mapping is a tool that provides an overview of an entire process, from beginning to end, with regard to the VOC, and identifies what is required to meet the customer's needs.

Operations managers primarily help a firm implement a strategy by ________.

allocating resources Operations managers allocate resources to help the organization accomplish its goals and implement its strategy.

As indicated with flat-screen televisions, when a firm makes improvements to product quality, product costs ______ significantly.

decrease Flat panel televisions have seen large improvements in quality while prices have remained the same or dropped substantially.

In the textbook scenario, the most relevant process variables are_____

hipping damage and spare parts packing

According to Joseph Juran, ________ are primarily responsible for ensuring that a company manufactures quality products.

managers Juran emphasized management's responsibility for ensuring quality.

The ________declined in the U.S. because of improvements in farming methods and machinery in the mid- to late-1800s.

price of food The prices consumers paid for food as a percentage of income declined because of the increased productivity on farms.

In the 1950s, Coca-Cola replaced glass bottles with lighter, less expensive aluminum cans without changing the taste of the soda. This operations change best illustrates how _________ altered Coca-Cola's product design.

technology Coca-Cola's change from glass to aluminum illustrates a product design improvement that was due to new technology because it altered the packaging of the product but not the taste of the product itself.

Productivity is _______________.

the ratio of outputs achieved divided by the inputs consumed to achieve those outputs Productivity is a mathematical calculation. It is the ratio of the outputs achieved divided by the inputs consumed to achieve those outputs.

Product safety is __________________________.

typically stringent in underdeveloped countries due to government laws Managers must use judgment to decide how far a company should go to ensure product safety, such as when determining what makes sense to include on a product's warning label.