Business Process Improvement
Midterm Exam
Course Introduction
Business Process Improvement explores the principles and methodologies used to analyze, optimize, and enhance organizational processes for increased efficiency and effectiveness. Students will learn to identify process inefficiencies, apply tools such as Lean, Six Sigma, and workflow analysis, and develop strategies for continuous improvement. The course emphasizes data-driven decision making, process mapping, measurement techniques, and change management to drive operational excellence and competitive advantage across a variety of industries.
Recommended Textbook
Managing Quality Integrating the Supply Chain 5th Edition by S. Thomas Foster
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15 Chapters
1374 Verified Questions
1374 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Differing Perspectives on Quality
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119 Verified Questions
119 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/24990
Sample Questions
Q1) If you select a physician based solely on reputation, you are basing your decision on which of the following dimensions of service quality?
A) responsiveness
B) empathy
C) service reliability
D) assurance
E) tangibles
Answer: C
Q2) ________ is a performance evaluation process in which an employee's peers, supervisors, and subordinates are involved in evaluating the worker's performance.
A) Circular evaluation
B) Upward-downward evaluation
C) 360-degree evaluation
D) Broad spectrum evaluation
E) Inward-outward evaluation
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Quality Theory
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90 Verified Questions
90 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Control involves gathering data about a process to ensure the process is consistent.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Just-in-time purchasing increases the number of suppliers used, resulting in increased variability.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) The major theoretical contribution of Ishikawa is his emphasis on total involvement of the operating employees in improving quality.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) Deming proposes the need for mass inspection to improve quality.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Global Supply Chain Quality and International Quality Standards
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100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/24992
Sample Questions
Q1) The Baldrige criteria are nonprescriptive and adaptable.
A)True
B)False Answer: True
Q2) Horizontal deployment means that all levels of management and workers are actively involved in quality.
A)True
B)False Answer: False
Q3) The Deming Prize is awarded to individuals and groups who have contributed to the field of quality control.
A)True
B)False Answer: True
Q4) Quality circles are natural work teams made up of workers who are empowered to improve work processes.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Page 5
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Chapter 4: Strategic Quality Planning
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91 Verified Questions
91 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Catchball involves reporting from teams and feedback from management.
A)True
B)False
Q2) ________ consists of the steps for developing strategy within an organization.
A) Prototype
B) Criterion
C) Process
D) Content
E) Paradigm
Q3) Discuss the importance of leadership as a key strategic variable for quality management.
Q4) Using the law of diminishing marginal returns, quality costs can be modeled to show the trade-offs between these costs. This trade-off model is called the ________.
A) order-winning criterion
B) supply chain model
C) PAF paradigm
D) forced-choice model
E) Lundvall-Juran model
Q5) Explain the four important skills that effective leaders exhibit.
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Chapter 5: The Voice of the Customer
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100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The ________ model shows that a firm's quality performance is increasing while customer's expectations are also increasing.
A) restructured customer-driven quality
B) relative customer-driven quality
C) redesigned customer-driven quality
D) receptive customer-driven quality
E) reactive customer-driven quality
Q2) Churn reduction involves the reduction of the loss of ________.
A) raw materials
B) suppliers
C) funds
D) products
E) customers
Q3) ________ data are ranked so that one measure is higher than the next.
A) Active
B) Discrete
C) Continuous
D) Ordinal
E) Passive
Q4) Differentiate between construct validity and content validity.
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Chapter 6: The Voice of the Market
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90 Verified Questions
90 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following steps in Xerox's 10-step process to benchmarking helps companies prioritize which areas are the first candidates for change and improvement?
A) determine the current performance gap
B) plan and conduct the investigation
C) identify whom to benchmark
D) decide what to benchmark
E) develop action plans
Q2) ________ allows initiator firms to assess their competitive position by comparing products and services with those of target firms.
A) Functional
B) Strategic
C) Product
D) Performance
E) Process
Q3) The conversion process results in outputs that are eventually sold to customers.
A)True
B)False
Q4) State Xerox's formal 10-step process to benchmarking.
Q5) Describe the concept of functional benchmarking.
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Chapter 7: Quality and Innovation in Product and Process Design
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93 Verified Questions
93 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Explain the over-the-wall syndrome.
Q2) The first step in performing quality function deployment is to develop a listing of technical design elements along the roof of the house.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Geometric modeling is used to develop a hand-drawn mathematical description of a part.
A)True
B)False
Q4) During the technology selection for product development stage of the product development process, preliminary work can be performed to identify key quality characteristics and potential for variability with each of the different materials.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Design for manufacture means to design products so that they are cost-effective and simple to build.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: Designing Quality Services
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90 Verified Questions
90 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/24997
Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements is true?
A) It is easy to obtain hard data relating to services because services' attributes are intangible.
B) Simultaneous production and consumption of services means that you have to do it right the first time.
C) Customer contact leads to a decrease in variability in the process.
D) Service liability issues center around safety concerns.
E) Manufacturing liability issues often relate to malpractice.
Q2) The idea behind fail-safing is to ensure that certain errors will never occur.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Services that we actively seek out and employ of our own accord are referred to as ________ services.
A) voluntary
B) internal
C) external
D) intangible
E) involuntary
Q4) What is services blueprinting?
Q5) What are the four stages of the service benefit package design process?
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Chapter 9: Managing Supplier Quality in the Supply Chain
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65 Verified Questions
65 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The supplier development program developed by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors as a single standard for certifying suppliers was called ________.
A) Targets for Excellence
B) Q1
C) business process reengineering
D) QS 9000
E) ISO 13485
Q2) Describe the concept of the "chain of customers."
Q3) The certification program developed by General Motors was called Q1.
A)True
B)False
Q4) ________ is the term used to characterize the relationship between suppliers and customers when a high degree of linkages and interdependencies exist.
A) Supplier alliance
B) Customer coproduction
C) Supplier-customer interaction
D) Supplier linkage
E) Value partnering
Q5) What is the function of the value chain?
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Chapter 10: The Tools of Quality
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90 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Check sheets are data-gathering tools that can be used in forming histograms.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The cause-and-effect diagram is used to move to lower levels of abstraction in solving problems.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following is not a component of the quality system model?
A) planning
B) continual improvement
C) organizational behavior
D) change
E) renewal
Q4) In a process map, a parallelogram appears whenever materials, forms, or tools enter or leave the process.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What are the steps involved in process mapping?
Q6) Define a scatter diagram and describe the steps involved in setting up a scatter plot.
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Chapter 11: Statistically Based Quality Improvement for Variables
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/25000
Sample Questions
Q1) Close tolerances are required in the manufacturing section of an automotive parts business. Since the customers demand quality, the owner wants to monitor the operation closely using statistical process control. After taking 8 samples of size 4, the owner records the data in the table above. What are the lower and upper limits for a chart that will monitor process dispersion?
A) (0.00, 1.85)
B) (0.00, 2.11)
C) (0.00, 2.28)
D) (0.00, 1.03)
E) (0.00, 1.45)
Q2) The lower limit of R is zero for sample sizes less than or equal to six.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A process is capable if only common variation is present in the process.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the difference between a variable and an attribute?
Q5) What is the difference between random and nonrandom variation?
Page 13
Q6) Design a control chart to monitor the gas mileage in your car. Collect the data over time.
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Page 14
Chapter 12: Statistically Based Quality Improvement for Attributes
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90 Verified Questions
90 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/25001
Sample Questions
Q1) The lower control limit for a p chart cannot be lower than zero.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is the system availability for something that has a mean time between failures of 100 hours and needs an average of 4 hours to repair when it does fail?
A) 0.98
B) 0.92
C) 0.96
D) 0.90
E) 0.84
Q3) What is the useful life in hours for a product having a reliability of 0.999 and a failure rate of 0.015 failures per hour?
A) 400
B) 420
C) 440
D) 460
E) 480
Q4) What are attribute charts used for and how do they work?
Q5) State the five types of attributes.
Page 15
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Chapter 13: Six Sigma Management and Lean Tools
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90 Verified Questions
90 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/25002
Sample Questions
Q1) What are the two major steps in the measure phase?
A) selecting process outcomes and mapping non value added activities
B) selecting process outcomes and verifying measurements
C) understanding the process and mapping non value added activities
D) understanding the process and verifying measurements
E) mapping non value added activities and verifying measurements
Q2) A process that meets the statistical notion of Six Sigma produces 3.4 defects per million pieces produced.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Part of the responsibility of the master black belt is to perform a cost of poor quality analysis.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The aspect of Six Sigma that has made it popular with CEOs is ________.
A) its similarity to continuous improvement programs
B) its repackaging of quality tools and philosophies
C) its organization into different levels
D) the contingency perspective
E) its cost-reduction orientation
Page 16
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Chapter 14: Managing Quality Improvement Teams and Projects
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91 Verified Questions
91 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Of the preconditions necessary for empowerment, ________ means employees must know what is expected of them and be given authority over their own work.
A) clear authority and accountability
B) flattening hierarchies
C) adequate communication and information for decision making
D) responsibility with authority
E) organizational learning
Q2) Of the preconditions necessary for empowerment, ________ means employees should be involved in planning related to their jobs.
A) clear authority and accountability
B) participation in planning at all levels
C) organizational learning
D) responsibility with authority
E) adequate communication and information for decision making
Q3) In an activity network diagram, slack time = late finish - early finish.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Differentiate between little s or big S self-directed work teams.
Q5) List the steps to perform force-field analysis.
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Chapter 15: Implementing and Validating the Quality System
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70 Verified Questions
70 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The goal of ________ is to observe current practices of the firm, to assess those practices, and to identify gaps in deployment.
A) the integrative approach
B) information systems
C) benchmarking
D) organizational learning and knowledge
E) self-assessment
Q2) The actions required to make the information system effective are problem identification, analysis, and corrective action.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Hoshin planning or policy deployment provides a framework for achieving alignment through the catchball process.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Not only is an understanding of customers required, but also an understanding of the competitor's customers.
A)True
B)False
Page 18
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