Important Short Questions and Answers: Total Quality Management(TQM) Principles

25. What are the various quality statements?

Vision Statement

Mission Statement 

Quality Policy Statement

26.Give the basic steps to strategic quality planning?

I.          Customer needs

II.         Customer positioning 

III.   Predict the future

IV.   Gap analysis 

V.   Closing the gap

VI.   Alignment 

VII.   Implementation

27. What is a quality policy?

The Quality Policy is a guide for everyone in the organization as to how they should provide products and service to the customers. The common characteristics are Quality is first among equals. Meet the needs of the internal and external customers. Equal or exceed the competition. Continually improve the quality. Include business and production practices. Utilize the entire work force.

28. What is a mission statement?

The mission statement answers the following questions: who we are, who are the customers, what we do, and how we do it.

29. What is a vision statement?

The vision statement is a declaration of what an organization should look like five to ten years in a future.

30.What are the important factors that influenced purchases?

Performance

Features

Service

Warranty

Price

Reputation

31. Give the need for a feedback in an organization?

Discover customer dissatisfaction. Discover relative priorities of quality.

Compare performance with the competition. Identify customer’s needs. Determine opportunities for improvement.

32. List the tools used for feedback?

Comment cards

Surveys

Focus groups

Toll- free telephone lines

Customer visits

Report cards

The internet

Employee feedback

American Customer Satisfaction Index

33.What are the activities to be done using customer complaints?

a.     Investigate customer’s experience by actively soliciting feedback, both positive and negative, and then acting on it promptly.

b.    Develop procedures for complaint resolution that include empowering front-line personnel.

c.     Analyze complaints, but understand that complaints that do not always fit into neat categories.

d.    Work to identify process and material variations and then eliminate the root cause. “More inspection” is not corrective action.

e.     When a survey response is received, a senior manager should contact the customer and strive to resolve the concern.

f.      Establish customer satisfaction measures and constantly monitor them.

g.     Communicate complaint information, as well as the results of all investigations and solutions, to all people in the organization.

h.    Provide a monthly complain report to the quality council for their evaluation and, if needed, the assignment of process improvement teams.

i.       Identify customer’s expectations beforehand rather than afterward through complaint analysis.

34.What are the elements of customer service?

a.     Organization

b.    Customer care

c.     Communication

d.    Front- line people

e.     Leadership

35.Define customer retention?

Customer retention represents the activities that produce the necessary

customer satisfaction that creates customer loyalty, which actually improves the bottom line. It is the nexus between the customer satisfaction and the bottom line.

36. Define Employee Involvement?

Employee involvement is a means to better meet the organization’s goals for quality and productivity at all levels of an organization.

37. State Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Level 1 : Survival

Level 2 : Security

Level 3 : Social

Level 4 : Esteem

Level 5 : Self-actualization

38. State Frederick Herzberg’s Two- factor theory?

Herzberg found that people were motivated by recognition, responsibility, achievement and the work itself.

39.What does an employee want?

I.          Interesting work II. Appreciation

III.   Involvement

IV.   Job security

V.         Good pay

VI.     Promotion/growth

VII.   Good working conditions

VIII.  Loyalty to employees

IX.     Help with personal problems

X.      Tactful discipline

41.Define Empowerment?

Empowerment means invest people with authority. Its purpose is to tap the Enormous reservoir of creativity and potential contribution that lies within every worker at all levels. Empowerment is an environment in which people have the ability, the confidence, and the commitment to take the responsibility and ownership to improve the process and to initiate the necessary steps to satisfy customer requirements within well-defined boundaries in order to achieve organizational values and goals.

42. What are the three conditions necessary to create the empowered environment?

i.    Everyone must understand the need for change.

ii.  The system needs to change for the new paradigm iii.The organization must enable its employees.

43. What are the types of teams?

i.  Process improvement team

ii.Cross- functional team iii. Natural work teams

iv.Self- directed/self- managed work teams

44. What are the characteristics of successful teams?

a. Sponsor

b.    Team charter

c.    Team composition

d.    Training

e.    Ground rules

f.    Clear objectives

g.    Accountability

h.    Well-defined decision procedures

i.    Resources

j.    Trust

k.    Effective problem solving

l.    Open communications

m.   Appropriate leadership

n.    Balanced participation

o.    Cohesiveness

45.  What are the decision- making methods?

a) Nondecision

b) Unilateral decision

c) Handclasp decision

d) Minority- rule decision

e) Majority- rule decision

f) Consensus

46.  What are the stages of team development?

i. Forming

ii. Storming

iii. Norming

iv. Performing

v. Adjourning

47.  Give some common team problems?

d.    Floundering

e.     Overbearing participants

f.      Dominating  participants

a.     Reluctant participants

b.    Unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts

c.     Rush to accomplish

d.    Attribution

e.     Discounts and “plops”

f.      Wanderlust : digression and tangents

g.     Feuding team members

48. What are the common barriers to team progress?

i. Insufficient training

ii. Incompatible rewards and compensation

iii. First- line supervisor resistance

iv. Lack of planning

v.  Lack of management support

vi. Access to information systems

vii. Lack of union support

49.Give the steps involved in training process?

1st. Make everyone aware of what the training is all about. 2nd. Get acceptance.

3rd. Adapt the program.

4th. Adapt to what has been agreed upon.

50. Define Recognition and Reward?

Recognition is a form of employee motivation in which the organization

publicly acknowledges the positive contributions an individual or team has made to the success of the organization. Reward is something tangible to promote desirable behavior. Recognition and reward go together to form a system for letting people know they are valuable members of the organization.

51. What are the types of appraisal formats?

i.    Ranking

ii. Narrative

iii.  Graphic

iv. Forced choice

52. What are the benefits of employee involvement?

Employee Involvement improves quality and increases productivity because

^Ø   Employees make better decisions using their expert knowledge of the process.

^Ø   Employees are more likely to implement and support decisions they had a part in making.

^Ø    Employees are better able to spot and pinpoint areas for improvement.

^Ø    Employees are better able to take immediate corrective action.

^Ø   Employee involvement reduces labor/management hassle by more effective Communications and cooperation.

^Ø   Employee involvement increases morale by creating a feeling of belonging to the organization.

^Ø   Employees are better able to accept change because they control the work Environment.

^Ø   Employees have an increased commitment to unit goals because they are involved.

53.What are the basic ways for a continuous process improvement?

^Ø   Reduce resources

^Ø   Reduce errors

Ø    Meet or exceed expectations of downstream customers

Ø                    Make the process safer

^Ø   Make the process more satisfying to the person doing it.

54.What are the three components of the Juran Trilogy?

^Ø   Planning

^Ø   Control

^Ø   Improvement

55.What are the steps in the PDSA cycle?

The basic Plan-Do-Study-Act is an effective improvement technique.

I.        Plan carefully what is to be done

II.       Carry out the plan

III.      Study the results

IV. Act on the results by identifying what worked as planned and what didn’t.

56. What are the phases of a Continuous Process Improvement Cycle? a) Identify the opportunity

b) Analyze the process

c) Develop the optimal solutions d) Implement

e) Study the results

f) Standardize the solution g) Plan for the future

57.Define 5S?

5S Philosophy focuses on effective work place organization and standardized work procedures. 5S simplifies your work environment, reduceswaste and non- value activity while improving quality efficiency and safety. Sort – (Seiri) the first S focuses on eliminating unnecessary items from the workplace.

Set In Order (Seiton) is the second of the 5Ss and focuses on efficient and effective storage methods. Shine: (Seiso) Once you have eliminated the clutter and junk that has been clogging your work areas and identified and located the necessary items, the next step is to thoroughly clean the work area. Standardize: (Seiketsu) Once the first three 5S’s have been implemented, you should concentrate on standardizing best practice in your work area. Sustain: (Shitsuke) This is by far the most difficult S to implement and achieve. Once fully implemented, the 5S process can increase morale, create positive impressions on customers, and increase efficiency and organization.

58. What is a Kaizen?

Kaizen is a Japanese word for the philosophy that defines management’s role in continuously encouraging and implementing small improvements involving everyone. It is the process of continuous improvement in small increments that make the process more efficient, effective, under control and adaptable.

i. Long-term commitment

ii.     Trust

iii.     Shared vision

60.What are the three types of sourcing?

a)   Sole sourcing

b)    Multiple sourcing

c)    Single sourcing

61.What are the ten conditions for the selection and evaluation of suppliers?

I. The supplier understands and appreciates the management philosophy of the

organization.

II. The supplier has a stable management system.

III. The supplier maintains high technical standards and has the capability of dealing with future technological innovations.

IV. The supplier can supply precisely those raw materials and parts required by the purchaser, and those supplied meet the quality specifications.

V. The supplier has the capability to produce the amount of production needed or can attain that capability.

VI. There is no danger of the supplier breaching corporate secrets.

VII. The price is right and the delivery dates can be met. In addition, the supplier is easily accessible in terms of transportation and communication.

VIII. The supplier is sincere in implementing the contract provisions.

IX. The supplier has an effective quality system and improvement program such as ISO/QS 9000.

X. The supplier has a track record of customer satisfaction and organization Credibility.

62.  What are the four phases of inspection?

i.     100% inspection

ii.     Sampling

iii.     Audit

iv.    Identity check

63.        What are the objectives of Performance measures?

i.    Establish baseline measures and reveal trends.

ii.   Determine which processes need to be improved.

iii. iii. Indicate process gains and losses.

iv.  Compare goals with actual performance.

v.       Provide information for individual and team evaluation.

vi.vi. Provide information to make informed decisions.

vii.  Determine the overall performance of the organization.

64. What are the characteristics used to measure the performance of a particular process?

i.    Quantity

ii.   Cost iii. Time

iv.   Accuracy

v.     v. Function

vi.   vi. Service

vii.  Aesthetics

65. Give the six basic techniques for presenting performance measures?

a)   Time series graph

b)   Control chart

c)   Capability index

d)   Taguchi’s Loss Function

e)   Cost of poor quality

f)    Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award