Exam 9: Evaluating and Improving Process Performance

In a total quality management environment, the best system for achieving quality is:

Kaizen is focused on small incremental improvements in processes rather than infrequent large discrete changes.

Gnash Motor Cars, Inc., employs a robotic spray booth to paint automobile bodies in its Flintstone plant. The robotic spray booth is capable of painting five cars per hour. Thus, its weekly theoretical capacity is 840 cars. Company engineers have set the rated speed of the spray booth at four cars per hour to allow for unavoidable downtime for maintenance and process irregularities. - Management intends to operate the spray booth for two eight-hour shifts, five days per week. The output sacrificed based on the planned utilization of this spray booth is termed:

Practical capacity is determined by allowing for downtime due to unexpected machine breakdowns and/or abnormal process variations.

The amount of time it takes for manufacturing to produce a given product from the time the order is released to production to finished goods is:

EDD, Inc., produces state-of-the-art communication devices for military applications. Each year, the company incurs significant expense to rework completed units that fail product tests. These expenditures are an example of:

A scrapyard operates a machine that crushes vehicles. The machine is capable of crushing 12 vehicles per hour. If the machine crushed 2,016 vehicles in the past seven days, it reached its:

Which of the items listed below are forms muda can take?

A key benefit of the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Performance Excellence program is:

In measuring the cost of quality, which one of the following is considered an appraisal cost?

Moroccan Ceiling Fans, Inc., employs an automated process to package its fans. One machine is used to form the cardboard boxes into which the fans and parts are placed. The manufacturer of the machine specifies that it is capable of constructing six cardboard boxes per minute. The machine is rated by Moroccan's engineers to run four boxes per minute, due to practical constraints. Output over the past three years has been 9,200 boxes per week, 9,100 boxes per week, and 9,300 boxes per week. Considering current demand for ceiling fans, the machine is budgeted to produce 8,800 boxes per week this year. The machine is operated five days per week for a single eight-hour shift. During a recently completed week, the machine's actual output was 7,200 boxes. Required: a) Prepare a capacity utilization variance analysis for Moroccan Ceiling Fans, Inc. b) The manager of the packaging department has observed that once the efficiency waste variance is corrected, the machine will be operating at nearly 92% capacity. She recommends acquisition of a second machine or replacing the current machine with one that has a larger capacity. Evaluate the packaging manager's concern based on measures of capacity utilization.

In addition to the absence of problems and deficiencies, product quality may be defined in terms of:

Leese Inc. has the following cost of quality financial data for its most recent fiscal year. Required: Develop a cost of quality report for Leese, Inc. for the fiscal year. State your amounts in both dollars and percent of the total.

Rate-based waste could be improved by reducing downtime due to normal foreseeable machine maintenance.

When measuring the cost of quality, the cost of inspecting incoming raw materials is a(n):

An incentive system that gives a portion of the profit resulting from process improvements to throughput, quality, cycle time, etc., to the workforce is called:

Gain-sharing refers to an intrinsic incentive system based on nonfinancial rewards.

Leese Inc. has the following quality financial data for its most recent fiscal year. The total amount of prevention costs that should be reported in a cost of quality report for the year is:

Gnash Motor Cars, Inc., employs a robotic spray booth to paint automobile bodies in its Flintstone plant. The robotic spray booth is capable of painting five cars per hour. Thus, its weekly theoretical capacity is 840 cars. Company engineers have set the rated speed of the spray booth at four cars per hour to allow for unavoidable downtime for maintenance and process irregularities. -The output sacrificed based on the assumption that this spray booth can operate effectively 80% of the time is termed:

Some observers have described the reliance on team structures to achieve process improvements as clan-based control. The most important aspect of clan forms of control to process management is: