Deck 8: Supplier Quality Management

Question 1

Reliance on a firm's suppliers for raw materials, components, subassemblies, and even finished products is steadily decreasing.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Within its supply chains, supply management does not merely buy parts or services from suppliers - it buys (and sometimes must help manage and improve) current and anticipated supplier capabilities that will result in quality products and services.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Deming indicates that the only proper way of dealing with defects is to inspect for and remove them from the process.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

In recent years, the concept of quality has changed radically from meeting customer requirements or expectations to exceeding them.

Question 5

Working with more suppliers allows the supply manager to concentrate on building trusting, collaborative relationships and supplier loyalty while improving quality in purchased goods and services.

Question 6

One of the primary causes of nonconforming supplier quality involves inconsistent communication and the resultant misunderstanding of specifications, expectations, and requirements between supply chain members.

Question 7

Deming's 14 Points constitute an à la carte menu of quality improvement activities, from which a company can pick and choose only those with which they agree.

Question 8

Designed-in systemic variation is a managerial concern, not a labor issue.

Question 9

There is a minimal gap between real leadership and what we traditionally think of as management or supervision.

Question 10

A buyer cannot realistically expect the highest levels of supplier performance when the supplier must respond to frequent or short lead time changes.

Question 11

Buyers should focus only on a supplier's physical output (the end result), never on the supporting inputs, systems, and processes that created that output.

Question 12

The TQM-focused organization must look at increasing process variation and seeking innovation in both product and process.

Question 13

Deming's quality philosophy has often been criticized because it does not prescribe specific firm-level actions and programs for management to follow.

Question 14

Quality is only for manufacturing.

Question 15

Many suppliers are hesitant to challenge excessive specifications for fear of losing the bid.

Question 16

It is difficult to maintain a trusting and collaborative relationship and receive quality goods and services when suppliers do not enjoy working with the buying organization.

Question 17

The lowest purchase price of an item may be important in the short run for supply management but may cause increased costs somewhere else in the production system over the long run: excessive scrap and rework, defective products, greater warranty claims, and so on.

Question 18

Most specifications are precise and succinct.

Question 19

The focal point of the Deming philosophy is that the entire organization should be focused on satisfying customer needs, whether the customer is internal or external.

Question 20

Slogans, signs, and posters are highly effective in changing worker behavior because they assume that most, if not all, quality problems are due to human behavior.

Question 21

According to Genichi Taguchi, any deviation from a target value carries with it some level of opportunity loss due to scrap, rework, and customer dissatisfaction.

Question 22

It is far less expensive and more efficient in the long run to avoid generating the defect in the first place than it is to inspect for it once it is created.

Question 23

An emphasis on finished product rather than process demands that a supplier provide evidence of its process capability to the buyer on an ongoing, regular basis.

Question 24

The performance appraisal systems in most organizations create real barriers to pride in workmanship as they promote competitive behavior and quantity of work over quality.

Question 25

Inconsistency is the enemy of total quality.

Question 26

To be considered capable, the outputs from a process must fall outside upper and lower specification limits.

Question 27

Even when given the proper climate in which to work, most people do not want to do a good job.

Question 28

A process that is stable and in control (i.e., no special and correctable causes of variation) can be expected to produce virtually all of its output within its natural tolerance limits.

Question 29

Perhaps the most dramatic difference between traditional quality control methods and total quality management thinking involves a shift from a process orientation to a product orientation.

Question 30

In many respects, the cost of quality should actually be considered as the cost of "poor quality."

Question 31

The extensive use of corrective action requests supports prevention of nonconforming defects.

Question 32

Because of the nature of many cost accounting systems, quality costs are rarely aggregated into various overhead accounts, which would mask their real impact on the finances and operations of a company.

Question 33

A grassroots TQM effort that emanates from the lower levels of the organization is doomed to failure without active and visible top management commitment and support.

Question 34

All delivery activities in a process can be considered wasteful.

Question 35

Supplier certification applies only to entire companies or products, rather than a specific part, process, or site.

Question 36

One property of normally distributed data is that 99.7 percent of all possible observations of process output occur within plus-or-minus standard deviations of the process mean.

Question 37

Companies that are unable to commit the necessary resources to assess or certify supplier quality on their own will never accept ISO 9000:2008 registration as proxy evidence of a supplier's quality management capability.

Question 38

Once a firm fully rationalizes and optimizes its supply base, improvement will occur primarily by developing the capabilities of existing suppliers rather than by switching suppliers on a large scale.

Question 39

The Cpk value is always larger than the Cp index.

Question 40

The objective of supplier certification is to ensure that nonconforming items are not created or do not leave a supplier's facility.

Question 41

A comprehensive supplier quality manual does not need to describe the supplier selection and evaluation processes.

Question 42

The _____ the proportion of the final product that suppliers provide, the _____ the impact they will have on overall product cost and quality.

A) smaller….greater
B) larger….lesser
C) smaller….more significant
D) larger….greater
E) There is no definitive relationship between proportion of final product provided by suppliers and impact on overall product cost and quality.

Question 43

The MBNQA is a competition and implies that a winning organization excels not only in quality management but also in quality achievement.

Question 44

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

A) Encourage education and self-improvement.
B) Take action.
C) Institute leadership.
D) Optimize the efforts of teams.
E) Utilize numerical quotas and measurement by objective to motivate management.

Question 45

It can take only a few months for a company to adequately develop a quality management system that is competitive for the MBNQA.

Question 46

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

A) Create a vision and demonstrate commitment.
B) Utilize fear to motive workers.
C) Improve constantly and forever.
D) Optimize the efforts of teams.
E) Remove barriers to pride in workmanship.

Question 47

All of the following are factors that influence how much attention supply management should commit to managing supplier quality except _____.

A) the physical distance between the supplier and buyer facilities
B) the ability of a supplier to affect a buyer's total quality
C) the internal resources available to support supplier quality management and improvement
D) the ability of a buying firm to practice world-class quality
E) a buyer's ability to collect and analyze quality-related data

Question 48

Which of the following is not one of the eight key principles of total quality management?

A) Strive for zero defects.
B) Define quality in terms of customers and their requirements.
C) Focus on output rather than process.
D) Make quality everyone's responsibility.
E) Stress objective rather than subjective analysis.

Question 49

Which of the following is not one of the expectations that suppliers have in a typical supply chain relationship?

A) Minimizing product design changes once production begins.
B) Providing visibility to future purchase volume requirements.
C) Sharing early access and visibility to new-product requirements.
D) Valuing accurate and timely payment of invoices.
E) Having the buyer co-locate its buying, engineering, and quality staffs into a supplier's facility.

Question 50

The average North American manufacturing firm spends _____ percent of its cost of goods sold on purchased goods and services.

A) < 10
B) 25
C) 55
D) 75
E) > 90

Question 51

Suppliers that earn ISO 9000:2008 registration typically demonstrate lower levels of quality than those suppliers that are not registered.

Question 52

_____ represents the ability to meet or exceed current and future customer (i.e., buyer and eventually end customer) expectations or requirements within critical performance areas on a consistent basis.

A) Kaizen
B) Supplier quality
C) Strategic sourcing
D) Process capability
E) Supply base rationalization

Question 53

Which of the following is not one of the eight key principles of total quality management?

A) Pursue quality at the source.
B) Emphasize prevention rather than detection of defects.
C) Focus on process rather than output.
D) Establish continuous improvement as a way of life.
E) Stress subjective rather than objective analysis. (LO #2)

Question 54

According to Armand Fiegenbaum, _____ is defined as the total composite of product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and maintenance through which the product or service in use will meet or exceed the expectations of the customer.

A) productivity
B) process capability
C) zero defects
D) quality
E) supply base optimization

Question 55

Which of the following is one of the dimensions used in developing a clear understanding of the buyer's expectations and requirements?

A) The ability of the buyer to succinctly identify, define, quantify, or specify its technical and sourcing requirements.
B) The seller's ability to effectively communicate its requirements.
C) How compatible the buyer's and supplier's respective corporate cultures are.
D) The ability of the selling company to succinctly identify, clearly define, quantify, or specify its technical and sourcing requirements.
E) None of the above.

Question 56

Which of the following is not one of the unique features of Deming's philosophy?

A) Variation is the primary source of quality nonconformance.
B) Although quality is everyone's responsibility, senior management has the ultimate responsibility for quality improvement.
C) Intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation.
D) Interacting parts of a system must be treated individually, not as a whole.
E) Predictions must be grounded in theory that helps to understand cause-and-effect relationships.

Question 57

ISO 9000:2008 follows a product-based approach to quality management that stresses planning, acting, analyzing results, and making improvements.

Question 58

ISO 14000:2004 does not build on existing governmental regulations, establish emissions and pollution levels, or detail any specific testing methods.

Question 59

Which of the following is not one of the eight key principles of total quality management?

A) Define quality in terms of customers and their requirements.
B) Inspect for quality at the end of the production line.
C) Stress objective rather than subjective analysis.
D) Strive for zero defects.
E) Make quality everyone's responsibility.

Question 60

A supplier quality manual may delineate the maximum process required for the supplier regarding inspections, use of statistical process control, continuous improvement, testing, sample evaluations, performance improvement, and the like.

Question 61

_____ occur before the product or service is provided to the customer.

A) Internal failure costs
B) Appraisal costs
C) External failure costs
D) Prevention costs
E) Total costs

Question 62

_____ are incurred following production or after the customer takes possession.

A) Inspection costs
B) Appraisal costs
C) Internal failure costs
D) Prevention costs
E) External failure costs

Question 63

A _____ program is the formal process of verifying, usually through an intensive cross-functional on-site audit, that a supplier's processes and methods actually produce consistent and conforming quality.

A) supplier selection and evaluation program
B) supplier certification
C) Six Sigma
D) process capability
E) zero defects

Question 64

_____ occurs whenever value is added to a product or service as it moves through transformation processes in the supply chain.

A) Six Sigma
B) Process capability
C) Kaizen
D) Supply base rationalization
E) Quality at the source

Question 65

_____ means continuous improvement and must be built into every single process in the organization.

A) Banzai
B) Optimization
C) Gung ho
D) Kaizen
E) Bonsai

Question 66

The concept of _____ consists of rework and disposal efforts that increase cost and decrease productivity.

A) the hidden factory
B) Six Sigma
C) continuous improvement
D) zero defects
E) kaizen

Question 67

_____ include the direct, out-of-pocket costs of measuring quality, specifically checking for possible defects.

A) Six Sigma costs
B) Internal failure costs
C) Appraisal costs
D) External failure costs
E) Prevention costs

Question 68

Which of the following is not an example of an internal failure cost?

A) Process troubleshooting.
B) Equipment calibration.
C) Re-inspection following detection of a defect.
D) Production downtime caused by defects.
E) Scrap and process waste.

Question 69

The _____ process capability index quantifies the relationship between the process's natural tolerance limits and the product's specifications using a two-sided approach, regardless of process centering.

A) Cpk
B) x-bar
C) MRP
D) Cp
E) Six Sigma

Question 70

Which of the following is Falseconcerning Deming's philosophy on fear in the workplace?

A) Employees may be fearful of making a mistake and being reprimanded for it.
B) Fear-free organizations are very common as only takes a short time to develop and maintain an organizational culture that promotes risk taking and change.
C) Most people have a fear of failure, so they don't want to try anything new or different.
D) People are creatures of habit and do not like to make changes in their routines.
E) Middle managers may be fearful of letting go of their traditional power based on command and control.

Question 71

The _____ process capability index does not adequately account for situations where the process is not closely centered on the nominal specification target value.

A) Cxy
B) optimization
C) Six Sigma
D) Cpk
E) Cp

Question 72

_____ are those costs incurred when production processes are designed or modified to prevent defects from occurring in the first place.

A) Appraisal costs
B) Internal failure costs
C) External failure costs
D) Prevention costs
E) Six Sigma costs

Question 73

_____ is the avoidance of nonconformance in products and services by not allowing errors or defects to occur in the first place.

A) Detection
B) Inspection
C) Prevention
D) The hidden factory
E) Optimization

Question 74

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

A) Institute training.
B) Drive out fear.
C) Optimize the efforts of individuals working alone. (LO #4)
D) Stop making decisions purely on the basis of price.
E) Improve constantly and forever.

Question 75

Which of the following is Falseconcerning Deming's philosophy on numerical quotas and measurement by objective?

A) Workers may game the system to make their individual production and output goals.
B) Many numerical based goals and objectives are often developed arbitrarily.
C) Goals are often short term in their focus.
D) Output standards fully support TQM improvements and other quality initiatives.
E) Many numerically-based goals and objectives are beyond the control of the worker.

Question 76

All of the following are examples of appraisal costs except _____.

A) laboratory testing of prototypes and samples
B) production inspection activities
C) development and maintenance of a quality management system
D) development and maintenance of a quality management system
E) incoming materials inspections

Question 77

_____ is the ability of a process to generate outputs that meet engineering specifications and/or customer requirements and refers to the normal behavior of a process when operating in a state of statistical control.

A) Process optimization
B) Six Sigma
C) Supplier certification
D) Quality at the source
E) Process capability

Question 78

All of the following are positive results from early supplier design involvement except _____.

A) longer lead-times in order to find and fix product defects before they get to the customer
B) better quality and product design
C) establishing reasonable tolerances
D) suppliers can anticipate and begin preproduction work
E) improved product quality and manufacturability

Question 79

According to Philip Crosby, the only True performance standard that defines total quality is _____, which he defined as conformance to requirements.

A) zero defects
B) Six Sigma
C) process capability
D) optimization
E) rationalization

Question 80

A _____ is designed to provide information about the performance of the process under stable operating conditions, i.e., when no special causes of variation are present.

A) make-buy analysis
B) process capability study
C) price analysis
D) cost analysis
E) Six Sigma project