Chapter 6: Engineering - Quality

Which of the following is NOT one of the major categories of costs associated with quality? a. prevention costs b. appraisal costs c. internal failures d. external failures e. none of the above; they are all major categories of costs associated with quality e

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

A recent consumer survey conducted for a car dealership indicates that, when buying a car, customers are primarily concerned with the salesperson's ability to explain the car's features, the salesperson's friendliness, and the dealer's honesty. The dealership should be ESPECIALLY concerned with which determinants of service quality?

The goal of inspection is to A) detect a bad process immediately. B) add value to a product or service. C) correct deficiencies in products. D) correct system deficiencies. E) all of the above

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

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

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

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

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

A successful quality strategy features which of the following elements?

The process improvement technique that sorts the vital few from the trivial many is

Marketing issues such as advertising, image, and promotion are important to quality because

In his book, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals, Dr. Peter Pronovost emphasizes the use of what tool to reduce catheter infections?

A quality loss function includes all of the following costs EXCEPT

Quality can improve profitability by reducing costs. Which of the following is not an aspect of reduced costs by quality improvements

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

When sample measurements falls inside the control limits, it means that

A fishbone chart is also known as a

Among the tools of TQM, the tool ordinarily used to aid in understanding the sequence of events through which a product travels is a

A production manager at a pottery factory has noticed that about 70 percent of defects result from impurities in raw materials, 15 percent result from human error, 10 percent from machine malfunctions, and 5 percent from a variety of other causes. This manager is most likely using

"Making it right the first time" is:

What refers to training and empowering frontline workers to solve a problem immediately?

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) 6.0 B) 3.4 C) 34 D) 2700 E) 6 times the monthly standard deviation of passenger

Which of the following is not a typical inspection point A) upon receipt of goods from your supplier B) when production or service is complete C) before the product is shipped to the customer D) at the supplier's plant while the supplier is producing E) after a costly process

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.

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

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%.

"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.

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 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.

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

Which of the determinants of service quality involves performing the service right the first time?

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.

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

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.

A Six Sigma program has how many defects per million

Pareto charts are used to A) identify inspection points in a process. B) outline production schedules. C) organize errors, problems, or defects. D) show material flow. E) show the range of values of a measurement and the frequency with which each value occurs.

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.

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.

Which of the following is FALSE regarding control charts A) Values above the upper control limits imply that the product's quality is exceeding expectations. B) Control charts are built so that new data can be quickly compared to past performance data. C) Control charts graphically present data. D) Control charts plot data over time. E) None of the above is false.