OPER Exam 1 Ch 6
18) One of Britain's largest children's hospitals working with Ferrari Racing is an example of: A) internal benchmarking. B) external benchmarking. C) Taguchi concepts. D) employee empowerment. E) corporate responsibility.
B
21) Total quality management emphasizes: A) the responsibility of the quality control staff to identify and solve all quality related problems. B) a commitment to quality that goes beyond internal company issues to suppliers and customers. C) a system where strong managers are the only decision makers. D) a process where mostly statisticians get involved. E) ISO 14000 certification.
B
22) Assignable variation: A) is a sign that a process is under control. B) is to be identified and investigated. C) is the same as random variation. D) is variation that cannot be traced to a specific cause. E) leads to a steep OC curve.
B
14) PDCA is most often applied with regard to which aspect of TQM? A) Six Sigma B) employee empowerment C) continuous improvement D) benchmarking E) JIT
C
17) "Quality Is Free" meaning that the costs of poor quality have been understated, is the work of: A) W. Edwards Deming. B) Joseph M. Juran. C) Philip B. Crosby. D) Crosby, Stills, and Nash. E) Armand Feigenbaum.
C
24) Control charts for variables are based on data that come from: A) acceptance sampling. B) individual items. C) averages of small samples. D) averages of large samples. E) the entire lot.
C
25) The purpose of an x bar chart is to determine whether there has been a: A) change in the dispersion of the process output. B) change in the percent defective in a sample. C) change in the central tendency of the process output. D) change in the number of defects in a sample. E) change in the AOQ.
C
27) Building high morale organizations and building communication networks that include employees are both elements of: A) ISO 9000 certification. B) Six Sigma certification. C) employee empowerment. D) Taguchi methods. E) the tools of TQM.
C
27) The number of late insurance claim payouts per 100 should be measured with what type of control chart? A) x bar chart B) R chart C) p chart D) c chart E) either p chart or c chart
C
34) The Central Limit Theorem: A) is the theoretical foundation of the c chart. B) states that the average of assignable variations is zero. C) allows managers to use the normal distribution as the basis for building some control charts. D) states that the average range can be used as a proxy for the standard deviation. E) controls the steepness of an operating characteristic curve.
C
36) Up to three standard deviations above or below the centerline is the amount of variation that statistical process control allows for: A) Type I errors. B) about 95.5% variation. C) natural variation. D) all types of variation. E) assignable variation.
C
38) Jars of pickles are sampled and weighed. Sample measures are plotted on control charts. The ideal weight should be precisely 11 oz. Which type of chart(s) would you recommend? A) p chart B) c chart C) both an x bar chart and an R chart D) an x bar chart, but not an R chart E) both a p chart and a c chart
C
39) If = 23 ounces, σ = 0.4 ounces, and n = 16, what will be the ±3σ control limits for the x bar chart? A) 21.8 to 24.2 ounces B) 23 ounces C) 22.70 to 23.30 ounces D) 22.25 to 23.75 ounces E) 22.90 to 23.10 ounces
C
8) "Making it right the first time" is: A) an unrealistic definition of quality. B) a user based definition of quality. C) a manufacturing based definition of quality. D) a product based definition of quality. E) the definition of quality proposed by the American Society for Quality
C
10) According to the manufacturing based definition of quality: A) quality is the degree of excellence at an acceptable price and the control of variability at an acceptable cost. B) quality depends on how well the product fits patterns of consumer preferences. C) even though quality cannot be defined, you know what it is. D) quality is the degree to which a specific product conforms to standards. E) quality lies in the eyes of the beholder.
D
12) Based on his 14 Points, Deming is a strong proponent of: A) inspection at the end of the production process. B) an increase in numerical quotas to boost productivity. C) looking for the cheapest supplier. D) training and knowledge. E) all of the above.
D
13) Which of the four major categories of quality costs is particularly hard to quantify? A) prevention costs B) appraisal costs C) internal failure costs D) external failure costs E) None is hard to quantify.
D
20) Suppose that a firm has historically been achieving "Three Sigma" quality. If the firm later changes its quality management practices such that it begins to achieve "Six Sigma" quality, which of the following phenomena will result? A) The average number of defects will be cut in half. B) The specification limits will be moved twice as far from the mean. C) The average number of defects will be cut by 99.9997%. D) The average number of defects will be cut by 99.87%. E) The average number of defects will be cut by 99.73%.
D
20) To become ISO 9000 certified, organizations must: A) document quality procedures. B) have an onsite assessment. C) have an ongoing series of audits of their products or service. D) all of the above E) none of the above
D
21) Natural variations: A) are variations that are to be identified and investigated. B) are variations that can be traced to a specific cause. C) are the same as assignable variations. D) lead to occasional false findings that processes are out of control. E) play no role in statistical process control.
D
11) The philosophy of zero defects is: A) the result of Deming's research. B) unrealistic. C) prohibitively costly. D) an ultimate goal in practice, 1 to 2% defects is acceptable. E) consistent with the commitment to continuous improvement.
E
32) An x bar control chart was examined and no data points fell outside of the limits. Can this process be considered in control? A) Not yet, there could be a pattern to the points. B) Not yet, the R chart must be checked. C) Not yet, the number of samples must be known. D) Yes. E) Both A and B
E
4) Arnold Palmer Hospital uses which of the following quality management techniques? A) Pareto charts B) flowcharts C) benchmarking D) just in time E) The hospital uses all of the above techniques.
E
6) A successful quality strategy features which of the following elements? A) an organizational culture that fosters quality B) an understanding of the principles of quality C) engaging employees in the necessary activities to implement quality D) A and C E) A, B, and C, E
E
1) Some degree of variability is present in almost all processes.
TRUE
1) The definition of quality adopted by The American Society for Quality is a customer oriented (i.e, user based) definition.
TRUE
11) A process range chart illustrates the amount of dispersion within the samples.
TRUE
12) Mean charts and range charts complement one another- one detecting shifts in process average- the other detecting shifts in process dispersion.
TRUE
16) A c chart is appropriate to plot the number of flaws in a bolt of fabric.
TRUE
2) TQM is important because each of the ten decisions made by operations managers deals with some aspect of identifying and meeting customer expectations.
TRUE
3) Internal failure costs are associated with scrap, rework, and downtime.
TRUE
13) PDCA, developed by Shewhart, stands for which of the following? A) Plan, Do, Check, Act B) Plan, Develop, Check, Accept C) Problem, Develop Solution, Check, Act D) Problem, Do, Continue, Act E) Prepare, Develop, Create, Assess
A
16) A Six Sigma program has how many defects per million? A) 3.4 B) 34 C) 1000 D) 6 times the standard deviation E) 2700
A
17) A hospital benchmarked against Ferrari Racing in an effort to: A) improve patient handoff quality. B) increase surgery prep time. C) lengthen surgery duration. D) reduce the number of doctors. E) all of the above
A
18) If a sample of items is taken and the mean of the sample is outside the control limits, the process is: A) likely out of control and the cause should be investigated. B) in control, but not capable of producing within the established control limits. C) within the established control limits with only natural causes of variation. D) monitored closely to see if the next sample mean will also fall outside the control limits. E) producing high quality products.
A
24) Which of the following statements regarding "Six Sigma" is TRUE? A) The term has two distinct meanings: one is statistical, the other is a comprehensive quality system. B) Six Sigma means that about 94 percent of a firm's output is free of defects. C) The Six Sigma program was developed by Toyota in the 1970s. D) The Six Sigma program is for manufacturing firms and is not applicable to services. E) Six Sigma certification is granted by the International Standards Organization (ISO).
A
40) The usual purpose of an R chart is to signal whether there has been a: A) gain or loss in dispersion. B) change in the percent defective in a sample. C) change in the central tendency of the process output. D) change in the number of defects in a sample. E) change in the consumer's risk.
A
7) Quality can improve profitability by reducing costs. Which of the following is not an aspect of reduced costs by quality improvements? A) flexible pricing B) increased productivity C) lower rework and scrap costs D) lower warranty costs E) All of the above are aspects of reduced costs by quality improvements.
A
33) Statistical process control charts: A) display the measurements on every item being produced. B) display upper and lower limits for process variables or attributes and signal when a process is no longer in control. C) indicate to the process operator the average outgoing quality of each lot. D) indicate to the operator the true quality of material leaving the process. E) are a graphic way of classifying problems by their level of importance, often referred to as the 80 to 20 rule.
B
37) A manager wants to build 3 sigma x bar control limits for a process. The target value for the mean of the process is 10 units, and the standard deviation of the process is 6. If samples of size 9 are to be taken, what will be the upper and lower control limits, respectively? A) 8 and 28 B) 16 and 4 C) 12 and 8 D) 4 and 16 E) 8 and 12
B
9) Three broad categories of definitions of quality are: A) product quality, service quality, and organizational quality. B) user based, manufacturing based, and product based. C) internal, external, and prevention. D) low cost, response, and differentiation. E) Pareto, Shewhart, and Deming.
B
15) Which of the following statements is NOT true? A) Self promotion is not a substitute for quality products. B) Inferior products harm a firm's profitability and a nation's balance of payments. C) Product liability transfers from the manufacturer to the retailer once the retailer accepts delivery of the product. D) Quality, be it good or bad, will show up in perceptions about a firm's new products, employment practices, and supplier relations. E) Legislation such as the Consumer Product Safety Act sets and enforces product standards by banning products that do not reach those standards.
C
28) The process of identifying other organizations that are best at some facet of your operations and then modeling your organization after them is known as: A) continuous improvement. B) employee empowerment. C) benchmarking. D) copycatting. E) patent infringement.
C
28) The upper and lower limits for diving ring diameters made by John's Swimming Co. are 40 and 39 cm. respectively. John took 11 samples with the following average diameters (39, 39.1, 39.2, 39.3, 39.4, 39.5, 39.6, 39.7, 39.8, 39.9, 40). Is the process in control? A) Yes, no diameters exceeded the control limits. B) No, some diameters exceeded the control limits. C) No, there is a distinguishable pattern to the samples. D) No, the range is not in control. E) There is not enough information to make a decision.
C
41) A manager wishes to build a 3 sigma range chart for a process. The sample size is five, the mean of sample means is 16.01, and the average range is 5.3. From Table S6.1, the appropriate value of D3 is 0, and D4 is 2.115. What are the UCL and LCL, respectively, for this range chart? A) 33.9 and 11.2 B) 33.9 and 0 C) 11.2 and 0 D) 6.3 and 0 E) 31.91 and 0.11
C
15) A Three Sigma program has how many defects per million? A) 34 B) 3 C) 3 times the standard deviation D) 2700 E) 1500
D
16) "The employee cannot produce products that on average exceed the quality of what the process is capable of producing" expresses a basic philosophy in the writings of: A) Vilfredo Pareto. B) Armand Feigenbaum. C) Joseph M. Juran. D) W. Edwards Deming. E) Philip B. Crosby.
D
19) The causes of variation in statistical process control are: A) cycles, trends, seasonality, and random variations. B) producer's causes and consumer's causes. C) mean and range. D) natural causes and assignable causes. E) Type I and Type II.
D
22) A successful TQM program incorporates all EXCEPT which of the following? A) continuous improvement B) employee involvement C) benchmarking D) centralized decision making authority E) JIT
D
26) The number of defects after a hotel room cleaning (sheets not straight, smears on mirror, missed debris on carpet, etc) should be measured using what type of control chart? A) x bar chart B) R chart C) p chart D) c chart E) either x bar chart or R chart
D
3) Which of the following statements regarding Arnold Palmer Hospital is FALSE? A) The hospital uses a wide range of quality management techniques. B) The culture of quality at the hospital includes employees at all levels. C) The hospital scores very highly in national studies of patient satisfaction. D) The hospital's high quality is measured by low readmission rates, not patient satisfaction. E) The design of patient rooms, even wall colors, reflects the hospital's culture of quality.
D
30) A quality loss function includes all of the following costs EXCEPT: A) the cost of scrap and repair. B) the cost of customer dissatisfaction. C) inspection, warranty, and service costs. D) sales costs. E) costs to society.
D
31) A manager tells her production employees: "It's no longer good enough that your work falls anywhere within the specification limits. I need your work to be as close to the target value as possible." Her thinking is reflective of: A) internal benchmarking. B) Six Sigma. C) ISO 9000. D) Taguchi concepts. E) process control charts.
D
5) Companies with the highest levels of quality are how many times more productive than their competitors with the lowest quality levels? A) 2 B) 3 C) 4 D) 5 E) None of the above because quality has no impact on productivity (units/labor hr.).
D
11) Which of the following is NOT one of the major categories of costs associated with quality? A) prevention costs B) appraisal costs C) internal failure costs D) external failure costs E) None of the above, they are all major categories of costs associated with quality.
E
23) Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning: A) a foolproof mechanism. B) just in time (JIT). C) a fishbone diagram. D) setting standards. E) continuous improvement.
E
25) Members of quality circles are: A) paid according to their contribution to quality. B) external consultants designed to provide training in the use of quality tools. C) always machine operators. D) all trained to be facilitators. E) None of the above; all of the statements are false.
E
30) A process that is assumed to be in control with limits of 89 ± 2 had sample averages for the x bar chart of the following: 87.1, 87, 87.2, 89, 90, 88.5, 89.5, and 88. Is the process in control? A) Yes. B) No, one or more averages exceeded the limits. C) Not enough information to tell. D) No, there is a distinguishable trend. E) No, two or more consecutive points are very near the lower (or upper) limit.
E
1) Managers at Arnold Palmer Hospital take quality so seriously that the hospital typically is a national leader in several quality areas-so that continuous improvement is no longer necessary.
FALSE
1) Quality is mostly the business of the quality control staff, not ordinary employees.
FALSE
10) If the process average is in control, then the process range must also be in control.
FALSE
10) The quality loss function indicates that costs related to poor quality are low as long as the product is within acceptable specification limits.
FALSE
3) The phrase Six Sigma has two meanings. One is statistical, referring to an extremely high process, product, or service capability- the other is a comprehensive system for achieving and sustaining business success.
TRUE
4) Philip Crosby is credited with both of these quality catchphrases: "quality is free" and "zero defects."
TRUE
5) Kaizen is similar to TQM in that both are focused on continuous improvement.
TRUE
5) Mistakes stemming from workers' inadequate training represent an assignable cause of variation.
TRUE
6) Averages of small samples, not individual measurements, are generally used in statistical process control.
TRUE
6) Improved quality can increase profitability via allowing flexible pricing.
TRUE
6) Quality circles empower employees to improve productivity by finding solutions to work related problems in their work area.
TRUE
8) Line employees need the knowledge of TQM tools.
TRUE
8) The Central Limit Theorem states that when the sample size increases, the distribution of the sample means will approach the normal distribution.
TRUE
9) In statistical process control, the range is often used as a substitute for the standard deviation.
TRUE
9) One of the ways that just in time (or JIT) influences quality is that by reducing inventory bad quality is exposed.
TRUE
19) If 1 million passengers pass through the St. Louis Airport with checked baggage each month, a successful Six Sigma program for baggage handling would result in how many passengers with misplaced luggage? A) 3.4 B) 6.0 C) 34 D) 2700 E) 6 times the monthly standard deviation of passengers
A
19) Regarding the quality of design, production, and distribution of products, an ethical requirement for management is to: A) determine whether any of the organization's stakeholders are being wronged by poor quality products. B) gain ISO 9000 certification for the organization. C) obtain a product safety certificate from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. D) have the organization's legal staff write disclaimers in the product instruction booklets. E) compare the cost of product liability to the external failure cost.
A
29) Costs of dissatisfaction, repair costs, and warranty costs are elements of cost in the: A) quality loss function. B) Pareto chart. C) ISO 9000 quality cost calculator. D) process chart. E) Ishikawa diagram.
A
29) Red Top Cab Company receives multiple complaints per day about driver behavior. Over 9 days the owner recorded the number of calls to be 3, 0, 8, 9, 6, 7, 4, 9, and 8. What is the upper control limit for the 3 sigma c chart? A) 13.35 B) 8.45 C) 24.00 D) 0.00 E) 9.03
A
14) GE's recall of 3.1 million dishwashers cost the company more in repairs than the value of the actual dishwashers. This is an example of which quality principle? A) PDCA B) internal failure costs C) appraisal costs D) cost of poor quality is underestimated E) prevention costs
D
31) Ten samples of a process measuring the number of returns per 100 receipts were taken for a local retail store. The number of returns were 10, 9, 11, 7, 3, 12, 8, 4, 6, and 11. Find the standard deviation of the sampling distribution for the p bar chart. A) There is not enough information to answer the question. B) .081 C) 8.1 D) .0273 E) .0863
D
35) For a 3 sigma x bar chart where the process standard deviation is known, the upper control limit: A) is 3σ below the mean of sample means for a 3σ control chart. B) is 3σ above the mean of sample means for a 3σ control chart. C) is 3σ/ below the mean of sample means for a 3σ control chart. D) is 3σ/ above the mean of sample means for a 3σ control chart. E) cannot be calculated unless the average range is known.
D
21) What is a set of quality standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization? A) Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award B) Deming Prize C) ISO 14000 D) IOS 2009 E) ISO 9000
E
23) Assignable causes: A) are not as important as natural causes. B) are within the limits of a control chart. C) depend on the inspector assigned to the job. D) are also referred to as "chance" causes. E) are causes of variation that can be identified and investigated.
E
26) Techniques for building employee empowerment include: A) building communication networks that include employees. B) developing open, supportive supervisors. C) moving responsibility from both managers and staff to production employees. D) building high morale organizations. E) All of the above are techniques for employee empowerment.
E
17) The x bar chart, like the c chart, is based on the exponential distribution.
FALSE
2) An improvement in quality must necessarily increase costs.
FALSE
2) Conforming to standards is the focus of the product based definition of quality.
FALSE
2) The purpose of process control is to detect when natural causes of variation are present.
FALSE
3) A normal distribution is generally described by its two parameters: the mean and the range.
FALSE
18) Stakeholders who are affected by the production and marketing of poor quality products include: A) stockholders, employees, and customers. B) suppliers and creditors, but not distributors. C) only stockholders, creditors, and owners. D) suppliers and distributors, but not customers. E) only stockholders and organizational executives and managers.
A
7) "Quality lies in the eyes of the beholder" is: A) an unrealistic definition of quality. B) a user based definition of quality. C) a manufacturing based definition of quality. D) a product based definition of quality. E) the definition of quality proposed by the American Society for Quality.
B
12) All of the following costs are likely to decrease as a result of better quality EXCEPT: A) customer dissatisfaction costs. B) inspection costs. C) scrap costs. D) warranty and service costs. E) maintenance costs.
E
20) Natural variations: A) affect almost every production process. B) are the many sources of variation that occur when a process is under control. C) when grouped, form a pattern, or distribution. D) are tolerated, within limits, when a process is under control. E) All of the above are true.
E
13) An x bar chart is used when we are sampling attributes.
FALSE
14) To measure the voltage of batteries, one would sample by attributes.
FALSE
15) A p chart is appropriate to plot the number of typographic errors per page of text.
FALSE
4) A process is said to be in statistical control when assignable causes are the only sources of variation.
FALSE
5) Deming's writings on quality tend to focus on the customer and on fitness for use, unlike Juran's work that is oriented toward meeting specifications.
FALSE
7) Benchmarking requires the comparison of your firm to other organizations - it is not appropriate to benchmark by comparing one of your divisions to another of your divisions.
FALSE
7) The x bar chart indicates that a gain or loss of uniformity has occurred in dispersion of a production process.
FALSE
4) Continuous improvement is based on the philosophy that any aspect of an operation can be improved.
TRUE
