Knowledgw Test – Sample Questions for QC Teams

1. When a process fails to satisfy a customer:

• it is quite often the customer’s fault.
• it is considered a defect
• it is time to reengineer the process.
• it is usually half the customer’s fault and half the company’s fault.

2. Consumers consider five aspects when defining quality. Which one of the following is least likely to be one of these aspects?

• Value
• Fitness for use
• Psychological impressions
• Individual development

3. Which of the following would be considered a prevention cost of quality?

• Inspecting incoming raw materials
• Training workers to perform their jobs
• Issuing a recall of defective product before another customer is injured
• Performing a 24 hour burn-in on every item produced to make sure it works before it is shipped.

5. Which of the following would be considered an appraisal cost of quality?

• Training workers to perform their jobs
• Purchasing better tools for workers to perform their jobs
• Repairing an item under the warranty
• Running a functional test on each item before it is boxed for shipment

6. A prime example of an internal failure cost is:

• the labor cost associated with inspecting every item produced.
• the labor cost associated with repairing an item returned under warranty.
• the material cost of a piece of stock metal that has had too large a hole drilled in it.
• the material cost of the paint applied to the case of a finished unit.

7. If the quality level is increased by taking steps to prevent defects before they happen, which one of the following statements is TRUE?

1. Prevention costs increase.
2. Appraisal costs increase.
3. Internal failure costs increase.
4. External failure costs increase.

8. At which of the following steps will the cost of detecting product defects be the highest?

• Customer 
• Process
• Final testing
• Raw material

9. Which one of the following statements is TRUE?

• No two products are exactly alike because the processes that produce them contain many sources of variation, even if the process is a machine.
• With due diligence, variation in a process can be completely eliminated.
• SPC and TQM are two competing techniques for quality control.
• Common causes of variation are those factors that can be identified as commonly occurring at a particular process.

10. Which one of the following statements about strategic considerations in total quality management is TRUE?

• Total quality management is another name for quality control.
• Training programs for employees and monetary incentives are two ways organizations can increase quality awareness in their employees.
• Plants with the best quality control usually have a high percentage of quality inspectors.
• Setting specific quality goals is impossible because good quality is impossible to quantify.

11. Which one of the following statements is a key feature of total quality management (TQM)?

• Quality is primarily the responsibility of all employees in the organization.
• Quality is primarily the responsibility of the quality control department.
• Quality is primarily the responsibility of the production department.
• Quality is primarily the responsibility of top management.

12. The implementation of a total quality management program will most likely result in:

• an increase in product lead times.
• a decrease in employee involvement.
• an increase in communication between workers.
• an increase in work-in-process inventory.

13. Continuous improvement is a philosophy that:

• uses problem-solving techniques within work teams.
• ensures there are plenty of quality inspectors to find areas for improvement.
• waits until a big problem occurs, then systematically solves it.
• encourages the hiring of statistical process control specialists to reduce the need for current employees to learn statistical methods.

14. A measure of the dispersion of observations in a process distribution is called:

• an average.
• a range.
• a shape.
• a specification.

15. Which one of the following statements relating to quality is TRUE?

1. Sampling procedures based on measurement by variables should be used when quality specifications are complex.
2. A distribution of sample means has more variance than the process distribution itself.
3. The distribution of sample means can be approximated by the normal distribution.
4. Sampling is a better approach than 100 percent inspection when the cost of accepting a defective item is very high