Exam 18: Introduction to Quality and Statistical Process Control

Philip Crosby claimed that quality is free because companies can use employees who are already being paid to make the quality improvements.

Common cause variation is variation in the output of a process that is unexpected and has an assignable cause.

Total process variation is made up of the sum of common cause variation and special cause variation.

Histograms and scatter plots are two statistical tools that are among the "Basic 7 Tools" for quality and process improvement.

The main process change that can be detected with a process control chart is:

Each evening,a nationwide retail chain randomly calls 100 of the customers who came to their store that day to ask whether they were satisfied with the service they had received.The customers respond yes or no.Suppose the company has found over time that 8 percent of the customers are not satisfied (no answers).If they have established a process control chart,what conclusion should be reached if the percentage of customers surveyed tonight that say no is 14 percent?

Which of the following is not among Deming's 14 points?

Variation exists naturally in the world around us so all processes and products can be expected to vary.

Which of the following did Juran and Deming differ on?

Deming and Juran differed with regard to goals and targets.

When cause-and-effect diagrams are used,an issue is presented and team members brainstorm about the possible causes that are to be divided into one of several main categories.

If the quality team members are all part of the same department and are familiar with the process being studied,there is no need to develop a process flowchart.

According to Deming's 14 points,if employees make mistakes,it is management's role to implement a penalty system to make sure that the employee does not make the same mistake again.

A fishbone diagram is a popular method for displaying quantitative data on the defects and types of defects in a service or manufacturing process.

From the mid-40s until the mid-70s,the emphasis in most companies was on getting the "product out the door."

Juran argued that by employing the Pareto principle,companies could focus their quality efforts on the few most important areas for improvement.

A scatter plot is useful for displaying the relationship between two qualitative variables.

If you wish to display a quantitative variable so that the center,spread and shape are visible,a histogram would be useful.

If you wish to display quantitative data in a way that will allow others to see how the data are distributed around the center of the data,a scatter plot is useful.

Statistical Process Control charts are used to detect whether a process remains in control or whether it has gone out of control.Explain how the SPC signals work.