1. What is quality?

A dynamic state associated with products, services, people,

processes, and environments that meets or exceeds expectations and helps
produce superior value.

2. What is TQM? Total Quality Management consists of the continual

improvement of people, processes, products (including services), and
environments. With total quality anything and everything that affects quality
is a target for continual improvement. When the total quality concept is
effectively applied the end results can include organizational excellence,
superior value, and global competitiveness.

3. How can we achieve organizational excellence with quality? About developing

the ability to consistently provide superior value to customers over the long
term. Organizations survive and thrive in a globally competitive marketplace
by providing superior value to customers.

4. What is the Deming cycle? The Deming cycle was developed to link the
production of a product with consumer needs and focus the resources of all
departments (research, design, production, marketing) in a cooperative
effort to meet those needs. The Deming cycle proceeds as follows:

a) Conduct consumer research and use it in planning the product (plan).

b) Produce the product (do).

c) Check the product to make sure it was produced in accordance with the plan
(check).

d) Mark the product (act).

e) Analyze how the product is received in the marketplace in terms of quality, cost
and other criteria (analyze).

5. What are the most common errors when starting quality initiatives?

a) Strategic confusion or lack of direction

b) Weak management team

c) Weak finical position

d) Poorly defined operating procedures

6. Explain the cost of poor quality When an organization does what it is

necessary to improve its performance by reducing deficiencies in key areas
(cycle time, warranty costs, scrap and rework, on-time delivery, billing, etc.),
it can reduce overall costs without eliminating essential services, functions,
product features, and personnel. Reducing costs is one of the principal
drivers behind the total quality concept of continual improvement.

7. What are the quality characteristics of world-class organizations?

a) Customer service

b) Quality control and assurance

c) Research and development/new product development

d) Acquiring new technologies

e) Innovation

f) Team-based approach (adopting and using effectively)

g) Best practices (study and use of)

h) Manpower planning

i) Environmentally sound practices

j) Business partnerships and alliances

k) Reengineering of process

l) Mergers and acquisitions

m) Outsourcing and contracting

n) Reliance on consulting services

o) Political lobbying

8. Responsibility and total quality In a total quality setting, people are

responsible for their actions and accountable for their performance.
Accepting responsibility helps build trust, integrity, and all the other
elements of ethics that are so important in a total quality environment.

9. Discuss some models for ethical quality decisions

a) Categorical imperative model also known as the black-and-white model. With this
model, right is right and wrong is wrong, and there are no gray areas.

b) Golden Rule model Do unto others as you would have them do unto you It is one
of the most popular models in Western society. Like the full-disclosure model, it takes
the view points of stakeholders into account in deciding what is ethical.
 c) Professional ethic model it states that a decision is ethical if it can be explained the
approval of a broad cross-section of professional peers. Professions that subscribe to
this model typically adopt a professional code of ethics.

10. What is the engineering managers role in quality ethics? Managers and
professionals in organizations are responsible for following through and
actually exemplifying ethical behavior. They are responsible for establishing
high ethical standards, setting a consistently positive example of exceeding
those standards, and acting immediately when they observe unethical
behavior.