WGU C215 Study Guide 2025

Competency 1 - Quality Management Methods – Chapters 5&6 1. Describe total quality management philosophy. TQM philosophy focuses on identifying the root causes of quality problems. It is an ongoing and never-ending improvement with the goal of meeting customer satisfaction. Customer focus, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, use of quality tools, product design, process management, and managing supplier quality Customer focus – Goal is to identify and meet customer needs Continuous improvement – A philosophy of never-ending improvement Employee empowerment – Employees are expected to seek out, identify, and correct quality problems Use of quality tools – ongoing employee training in the use of quality tools Product design – products need to be designed to meet customer expectations Process mgmt – quality should be built into the process; sources of quality problems should be identified and corrected Managing supplier quality – quality concepts must extend to a company’s suppliers 2. List and describe the various standards of quality. ISO 9000: o Certification developed by International Organization for Standardization. o Set of internationally recognized quality standards. o Companies are periodically audited and certified. o ISO 9000:2008, QMS — Fundamentals and Standards. o ISO 9001:2008, QMS — Requirements. o ISO 9004:2008, QMS — Guidelines for Performance. o More than 40,000 companies have been certified. • ISO 14000: o Focuses on a company’s environmental responsibility. • ISO 26000: o Help organizations evaluate and address their social responsibility. 3. List the quality gurus and their contributions to the TQM concept. 4. Identify and discuss the seven quality control tools management use to analyze quality problems. Cause & Effect Diagram - Often called fishbone diagram. Used to identify potential causes of quality problems. Used by quality control teams, explored through brainstorming. Flowcharts – schematic diagram used to document the detailed steps in a process. Sequence of steps involved in an operations/process. Ops mgr can identify bottlenecks Checklist – simple data check-off sheets, alist of common defects and the # of observed occurrences of these defects. Designed to identify type of quality problems at each workstations/per shift/machine/operator. (ie type-broken zipper, ripped material, missing button, faded color) Control charts – used to evaluate whether a process is operating within set expectations. The UCL and LCL are calculated limits used to show when a process is in or out of control – ie weight, width, or volume. UCL – Upper control limit | LCL – Lower control limit Scatter diagram – graphs that show how 2 variables are related to one another. Useful in detecting the amount of correlation, or the degree of linear relationship. Pareto Analysis – used to identify quality problems based on their degree of importance. 80-20 rule. Principle is that quality problems are the result of only a few causes – 80% of problems are caused by 20% of causes. Histograms – a chart that shows the frequency distribution of observed values of a variable – ie service time at a bank drive-up window. Displays whether the distribution is symmetrical(normal) or skewed. 5. List and describe the costs of quality. Quality control costs (to achieve high quality)– Prevention costs and Appraisal costs Quality failure costs (high costs associated with poor quality) – Internal and External failure costs 6. Explain the concept of the Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle. PDSA is part of Continuous improvement - A philosophy of never-ending improvement, e.g., Kaizen. Plan o Evaluate current process. o Document current procedures, collect data, and identify problems. o Develop an improvement plan, performance objectives. • Do o Implement the plan — trial basis. • Study o Collect data and evaluate against objectives. • Act o Communicate the results from the trial. o If successful, implement new process. 7. Define statistical quality control (SQC). the term used to describe the set of statistical tools used by quality professionals to evaluate organizational quality. Three categories for SQC 1. Descriptive statistics are used to describe quality characteristics and relationships. • Included are statistics such as the mean, the standard deviation, the range, and a measure of the distribution of data. 2. Statistical process control (SPC) involves inspecting a random sample of the output from a process and deciding if it falls within range and whether the process is functioning properly. 3. Acceptance sampling is used to randomly inspect a batch of goods to determine acceptance/rejection. 8. Explain the two causes of variation (common and assignable). Variation can be categorized as common or assignable. o Common, or random, causes of variation • Random causes that we cannot identify. • Unavoidable and due to slight differences in processing. o Assignable causes of variation • Causes that can be identified and corrected. • Examples: poor employee training, worn tool, machine needing repair. 9. Explain the concepts of process capability and process capability index. Process capability is the ability of the production process to meet or exceed preset specifications. It is measured by the process capability index Cp , which is computed as the ratio of the specification width to the width of the process variable 10. Describe the concept of Six sigma and its five-step plan. Six Sigma: A high level of quality associated with approximately 3.4 defective parts per million. o Before design, marketing ensures that product characteristics are what customers want. o Operations ensures that product design characteristics can be met by controlling materials and processes to 6σ levels. o Other functions like finance and accounting use 6σ concepts to control all of their processes.