In the context of a health care organization, explain why it is important to know not only the needs of the customers but also their relative importance.
> Refer to Exercise 9-46. In order to boost product sales, the manager is contemplating the hiring of an additional sales staff. The added monthly cost of this hire will be $6000, but the expected monthly sales is projected to be $65,000 with a standard de
> For a marketing manager of a company, product sales in a specified market is of importance. Currently, for a brand-named product, the mean monthly sales are $50,000 with a standard deviation of $3500. Assuming normality of the distribution of monthly sal
> Refer to Exercise 9-42. The investment bank was able to identify a riskier strategy that projects a mean yield of 9.2% with a standard deviation of 2.4%. Assuming normality of distribution of yield rates, what is the lower capability index now if a targe
> Refer to Exercise 9-43 on the investment bank. Using the investment strategy that yields a mean yield of 7.0% with a standard deviation of 0.9%, what should a published goal of yield for customers be if the bank wants to be 95% sure of meeting that goal?
> Refer to Exercise 9-42. With the adoption of a slightly more conservative investment strategy, the bank forecasts a mean yield of 7.0% with a standard deviation of 0.9%. Assuming normality of distribution of yield rates, what is the lower capability inde
> An investment bank has been monitoring its return on investment for a certain category of its shareholders. Past data show a mean yield of 7.5% with a standard deviation of 1.5%. Assuming normality of distribution of yield rates, if senior management has
> Refer to Exercise 2-2. For each situation, explain what factors influence customer perception of quality and how they are to be managed. Data from Exercise 2-2: Discuss some service nonconformity and behavioural characteristics in the following areas: (
> Refer to Exercise 2-2. For each situation, discuss the ease or difficulty of measuring service quality. What are some remedial measures? Data from Exercise 2-2: Discuss some service nonconformity and behavioural characteristics in the following areas: (
> Discuss some service nonconformity and behavioural characteristics in the following areas: (a) Health care (b) Call center (c) Internal Revenue Service (d) Airline industry
> For each of the following areas, define appropriate quality characteristic(s) and parameters and indicate the hypotheses that you would test: (a) Effectiveness of a hospital in satisfying patients, employees, and shareholders (note that different hypothe
> Who is the customer in health care? Describe some of the customer’s needs.
> Consider the logistics company in Exercise 3-8. Conduct a quality function deployment analysis where the objective is to minimize delays in promised delivery dates. Data from Exercise 3-8: Consider a logistics company transporting goods on a global basi
> Consider a logistics company transporting goods on a global basis. Identify possible vision and mission statements and company strategies. Conduct a balanced scorecard analysis and indicate suggested diagnostic and strategic measures in each of the areas
> Consider the airline transportation industry. Develop a house of quality showing customer requirements and technical descriptors.
> Select an organization of your choice in the following categories. Identify the organization’s strategy. Based on these strategies, perform a balanced scorecard analysis by indicating possible diagnostic and strategic measures in each of the areas of lea
> What are the advantages of using quality function deployment? What are some key ingredients that are necessary for its success?
> Describe Motorola’s concept of six sigma quality and explain the level of nonconforming product that could be expected from such a process.
> Compare and contrast a company vision, mission, and quality policy. Discuss these concepts in the context of a hospital of your choice.
> Consider a visit to your local physician’s office for a routine procedure. Develop a flowchart for the process. What methods could be implemented to improve your satisfaction and reduce waiting time?
> You are asked to make a presentation to senior management outlining the demand for a product. Describe the data you would collect and the tools you would use to organize your presentation.
> With increased air travel, the training of air traffic controllers is vital. However, of those who enter the program, several drop out, for a variety of reasons. In the past, 70% have completed the program. A new program is being developed at significant
> What are the advantages of creating a long-term partnership with vendors?
> Consider Exercise 3-18 on the prevention of automobile accidents. However, in this exercise, consider the driver of the automobile. Construct a cause-and-effect diagram for accidents influenced by the driver. Conduct a failure model and effects criticali
> The safe operation of an automobile is dependent on several subsystems (e.g., engine, transmission, braking mechanism). Construct a cause-and-effect diagram for automobile accidents. Conduct a failure mode and effects criticality analysis and comment on
> The postal system has undertaken a quality improvement project to reduce the number of lost packages. Construct a cause-and-effect diagram and discuss possible measures that should be taken.
> Discuss the role of national and international standards in certifying vendors.
> What is the purpose of vendor certification? Describe typical phases of certification
> In a large city, the mass-transit system, currently operated by the city, needs to be overhauled with projected demand expected to increase substantially in the future. The city government is considering possible outsourcing. (a) Discuss the mission and
> The area of nanotechnology is of much importance in many phases of our lives—one particular area being development of drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. Discuss the role of benchmarking, innovation, and time-based competition in this context.
> A financial institution is considering outsourcing its information technology–related services. What are some criteria that the institution should consider? Propose a scheme to select a vendor.
> What are the various types of quality audits? Discuss each and identify the context in which they are used.
> Which type of control chart (p, np, c, u, U, or charts for highly conforming processes) is most appropriate to monitor the following situations? (a) Number of potholes in highways (b) Proportion of customers who are satisfied with the operation of the lo
> Describe the steps of benchmarking relative to a company that develops microchips. What is the role of top management in this process?
> Describe the total quality management philosophy. Choose a company and discuss how its quality culture fits this theme.
> In a chemical process, the parameters of temperature, pressure, proportion of catalyst, and pH value of the mixture influence the acceptability of the batch. The data from 20 observations are shown in Table 3-15. (a) Construct a multivariable chart. What
> Discuss the emerging role of ISO 9000 standards in the global economy.
> Is accomplishing registration to ISO 9001 standards similar to undergoing an audit process? What are the differences?
> Use a flowchart to develop an advertising campaign for a new product that you will present to top management.
> An insurance company is interested in determining whether life insurance coverage is influenced linearly by disposable income. A randomly chosen sample of size 20 produced the data shown in Table 3-14. Construct a scatterplot. What conclusions can you dr
> In a printing company, data from the previous month show the following types of errors, with the unit cost (in dollars) of rectifying each error, in Table 3-13. (a) Construct a Pareto chart and discuss the results. (b) If management has a monthly allocat
> Discuss the role of established standards and third-party auditors in quality auditing. What is the role of ISO 9000 standards in this context?
> Discuss the challenges and the contributions that could be derived from development of a health care decision support system in the current century.
> For the hardware company in Exercise 1-15, suppose that setup and testing costs are different for CPUs and monitors. Annual costs for setup and testing are $0.4 million and $0.7 million for CPUs and monitors, respectively. However, between two types of C
> What are some of the challenges faced by the health care industry in the twenty-first century?
> Discuss the importance of health care analytics and its possible contributions.
> Consider Exercise 3-24. Through consolidation of activities, the number of operations has now been reduced to 10, with the first-pass yield of each operation being 98%. What is the percentage improvement in rolled throughout yield relative to that in Exe
> Consider Exercise 3-23. Suppose, through a quality improvement effort, that the first pass yield of each operation is improved to 98%. What is the percentage improvement in rolled throughput yield? Data from Exercise 3-23: A product goes through 20 inde
> A product goes through 20 independent operations. For each operation, the first-pass yield is 95%. What is the rolled throughput yield for the process?
> What are some reasons for failure of total quality management in organizations? Discuss.
> Customer satisfaction is of importance to management. Discuss customer needs in the context of internet service providers (ISPs) and their degree of importance.
> American Express has access to the spending habits of its cardholders. How may it use this information to improve customer satisfaction? How may its retail customers use this information?
> American Airlines, through the use of its SABRE reservation system, realized the potential of yield management. Through such a system, it monitored the status of its upcoming flights and competitors’ flights continuously to make pricing and allocation de
> The development of new drugs has to undergo stringent regulations resulting in long lead times and high research and development costs. Suppose that you are in charge of the federal agency that grants drug approvals and you wish to be convinced that a ne
> What are some organizational culture issues that management must address as they strive for long-run stability and growth?
> Explain Deming’s system of profound knowledge with specifics in the following industries: (a) Hospital (b) Software company
> Discuss the dilemma management faces when they sacrifice short-term profits for long-run stability. What approach is recommended?
> Explain the drawbacks of a bottom-line management approach.
> Discuss the five deadly diseases in the context of Deming’s philosophy of management. What remedial actions would you take?
> What is the difference between quality control and quality improvement? Discuss the role of management in each of these settings.
> What are the drawbacks of some traditional performance appraisal systems and how may they be modified?
> Discuss the organizational structure in a typical health care facility. What barriers might this create and what are some remedial measures?
> Explain the organizational barriers that prevent a company from adopting the quality philosophy. Describe some specific action plans to remove such barriers.
> Describe some characteristics for selecting vendors in the following organizations and the selection process to be followed: (a) Supermarket (b) Physician’s office (c) Fast-food restaurant
> Discuss the processes through which supply chain quality may be monitored.
> What are the reasons for mass inspection not being a feasible alternative for quality? improvement?
> Explain the notion of the extended process and its significance. Discuss this in the context of the following organizations: (a) Hardware vendor (such as for computers and printers) (b) Hospital (c) Software company (d) Entertainment industry
> The following companies are interested in conducting a market survey of their products/ services. Explain the possible sampling techniques that they might choose. (a) High-end automobiles (b) Cooking range (c) Cell phones (d) Boutique clothes (e) City mu
> Consider the price of homes in a large metropolitan area. What kind of distribution would you expect in terms of skewness and kurtosis? As an index, would the mean or median price be representative? What would the interquartile range indicate?
> Refer to Exercise 4-7. For each situation, define a type I and a type II error in the appropriate context. Consider the costs of such errors and discuss the implications. Data from Exercise 4-7: State the null and alternative hypotheses in the following
> You are interested in developing a regression model to predict monthly sales of a departmental store. Discuss the independent variables that you might select. How would you select the functional form for these independent variables?
> A health care facility is exploring the relationship between annual costs based on the number of patients seen and the number of emergency cases. (a) Explain what an outlier means in this context. How would you statistically test for the presence of an o
> A marketing company wants to determine if the combined years of experience of its staff who worked on a proposal have an impact on the chance of winning a contract. What is the equation of an appropriate model?
> A financial institution wants to explore the relationship between a loan application approval time and the independent variables of annual salary of the applicant and years of employment. (a) What is the equation of a regression model? (b) In order to sa
> Refer to Exercises 13-1 and 13-2. Suppose you believe that the impact of contract cost on web development time is dependent on the type of industry that the company is from. (a) What is the model equation in this context? (b) What null hypothesis would y
> As natural resources become scarce, discuss the role of ISO 14000 in promoting good environmental management practices.
> (a) Refer to Exercise 13-1. Based on historical information, the company believes that the type of industry that the customer belongs to influences web development time. Suppose that there are four industry types: manufacturing, banking, airlines, and he
> Refer to Exercise 13-1. What null hypothesis would you test to determine if contract cost is significant in the presence of the other independent variables? What null hypothesis would you test to determine if the number of projects undertaken could be dr
> An information technology company that specializes in website development is interested in modelling development time as a function of the contract cost, number of available developers, and number of projects undertaken. (a) Write down the equation of th
> Explain why it does not make sense to test for the main effects in a factorial experiment if the interaction effects are significant.
> Distinguish between a randomized block design and a Latin square design. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Latin square design?
> Explain the difference between the completely randomized design and the randomized block design. Discuss in the context of a gasoline refining process. Under what conditions would you prefer to use each design?
> What is the difference between a fixed effects model and a random effects model? Give some examples in the logistics area.
> What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative variables? Give examples of each in the transportation industry. Which of these two classes permit interpolation of the response variable?
> Explain the concept of interaction between factors and give some examples in the entertainment industry.
> Explain the principles of replication, randomization, and blocking and discuss their roles in experimental design in a semiconductor manufacturing company.
> Discuss the impact of technological breakthrough on the prevention and appraisal cost and failure cost functions.
> Explain the importance of experimental design in quality control and improvement for a financial institution.
> Discuss the signal-to-noise ratio. How is it used in the Taguchi method? What is an adjustment parameter and how is it used?
> Compare and contrast Taguchi’s loss functions for the situations target is best, smaller is better, and larger is better. Give examples in the hospitality industry.
> Discuss Taguchi’s philosophy for quality improvement. Discuss his loss function and its contributions.
> What is the role of a defining contrast, or generator, in fractional factorial experiments? Distinguish between a principal fraction and an alternate fraction.
> Clearly distinguish between the principles of confounding and fractionalization.
> What are the features of a 2k factorial experiment? What are the features of a 2k–2 fractional factorial experiment and how is it constructed?
> What is the utility of contrasts in experimental design? What are orthogonal contrasts and how are they helpful?
> Distinguish between factor, treatment, and treatment levels in the context of a health care facility.
> Distinguish between failure-, time-terminated, and sequential tests for reliability and life testing.
> Explain why it is possible for external failure costs to go up even if the first-pass quality level of a product made by a company remains the same.
> Explain procedures that might improve the reliability of a system. How would you increase the availability of a system? Distinguish between a system with components in parallel and another with standby components.
> Describe the life cycle of a product. What probability distributions would you use to model each phase?
> Define reliability. Explain its role in quality control and improvement.
