Chapter 6

32) Identify the five steps of DMAIC.

(1) Define the project's purpose, scope, and outputs and then identify the required process information, keeping in mind the customer's definition of quality; (2) Measure the process and collect data; (3) Analyze the data, ensuring repeatability (the results can be duplicated), and reproducibility (others get the same result); (4) Improve, by modifying or redesigning, existing processes and procedures; and (5) Control the new process to make sure performance levels are maintained.

Identify the seven major concepts of TQM

(1) continuous improvement, (2) Six Sigma, (3) employee empowerment, (4) benchmarking, (5) just-in-time (JIT), (6) Taguchi concepts, and (7) knowledge of TQM tools.

16) A Six Sigma program has how many defects per million?

A) 3.4

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

13) PDCA, developed by Shewhart, stands for which of the following?

A) Plan-Do-Check-Act

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.

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.

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

17) A hospital benchmarked against Ferrari Racing in an effort to:

A) improve patient handoff quality

29) Costs of dissatisfaction, repair costs, and warranty costs are elements of cost in the:

A) quality loss function.

18) Stakeholders who are affected by the production and marketing of poor quality products include

A) stockholders, employees, and customers.

21) Total quality management emphasizes:

B) a commitment to quality that goes beyond internal company issues to suppliers and customers.

18) One of Britain's largest children's hospitals working with Ferrari Racing is an example of:

B) external benchmarking.

9) Three broad categories of definitions of quality are:

B) user based, manufacturing based, and product based.

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?

C) The average number of defects will be cut by 99.9997%.

8) "Making it right the first time" is:

C) a manufacturing-based definition of quality

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:

C) benchmarking

15) A Three Sigma program has how many defects per million?

D) 2700

5) Companies with the highest levels of quality are how many times more productive than their competitors with the lowest quality levels?

D) 5

3) Which of the following statements regarding Arnold Palmer Hospital is FALSE?

D) The hospital's high quality is measured by low readmission rates, not patient satisfaction.

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:

D) W. Edwards Deming

20) To become ISO 9000 certified, organizations must:

D) all of the above

13) Which of the four major categories of quality costs is particularly hard to quantify?

D) external failure costs

10) According to the manufacturing-based definition of quality:

D) quality is the degree to which a specific product conforms to standards.

30) A quality loss function includes all of the following costs EXCEPT:

D) sales costs.

12) Based on his 14 Points, Deming is a strong proponent of:

D) training and knowledge

6) A successful quality strategy features which of the following elements?

E) A, B, and C

26) Techniques for building employee empowerment include:

E) All of the above are techniques for employee empowerment

21) What is a set of quality standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization?

E) ISO 9000

25) Members of quality circles are:

E) None of the above; all of the statements are false.

11) Which of the following is NOT one of the major categories of costs associated with quality?

E) None of the above; they are all major categories of costs associated with quality.

4) Arnold Palmer Hospital uses which of the following quality management techniques?

E) The hospital uses all of the above techniques.

11) The philosophy of zero defects is

E) consistent with the commitment to continuous improvement.

23) Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning:

E) continuous improvement.

12) All of the following costs are likely to decrease as a result of better quality EXCEPT:

E) maintenance costs

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) The quality loss function indicates that costs related to poor quality are low as long as the product is within acceptable specification limits.

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

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

33) Explain how just-in-time processes relate to the quality of an organization's outputs.

JIT reduces costs of quality by lowering waste and scrap. JIT improves quality by shortening the time between error detection and error correction. Meanwhile, better quality means less inventory and a better JIT system.

1) Pareto charts are a graphical way of identifying the few critical items from the many less important

True

1) The definition of quality adopted by The American Society for Quality is a customer-oriented (i.e., user based) definition

True

2) A cause-and-effect diagram helps identify the sources of a problem.

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

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) Continuous improvement is based on the philosophy that any aspect of an operation can be improved.

True

4) Philip Crosby is credited with both of these quality catch-phrases: "quality is free" and "zero defects.

True

23) The focus of ISO 9000 is to enhance success through what eight quality management principles?

(1) top management leadership, (2) customer satisfaction, (3) continual improvement, (4) involvement of people, (5) process analysis, (6) use of data-driven decision making, (7) a systems approach to management, and (8) mutually beneficial supplier relationships

7) "Quality lies in the eyes of the beholder" is:

B) a user-based definition of quality.

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:

D) Taguchi concepts.

22) A successful TQM program incorporates all EXCEPT which of the following?

D) centralized decision-making authority

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?

D) cost of poor quality is underestimated

5) Kaizen is similar to TQM in that both are focused on continuous improvement

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

9) One of the ways that just-in-time (or JIT) influences quality is that by reducing inventory, bad quality is exposed

True

17) "Quality Is Free," meaning that the costs of poor quality have been understated, is the work of:

C) Philip B. Crosby

15) Which of the following statements is NOT true?

C) Product liability transfers from the manufacturer to the retailer once the retailer accepts delivery of the product

14) PDCA is most often applied with regard to which aspect of TQM

C) continuous improvement

27) Building high-morale organizations and building communication networks that include employees are both elements of:

C) employee empowerment.

22) Identify the four costs of quality. Which one is hardest to evaluate? Explain.

The four costs are internal failure, external failure, prevention, and appraisal. The hardest category to estimate is external failure costs, or costs that occur after delivery of defective parts or services. These costs are very hard to quantify