What are the differences between quality of design and quality of conformance?

Discussion Questions
1. How can quality be measured for the following?

a. Phone service

b. Automobile repair

c. Ballpoint pens

2. What are the differences between quality of design and

quality of conformance?

3. Product A has an MTBF of 30 hours and an MTTR of 5

hours. Product B has an MTBF of 40 hours and an

MTTR of 2 hours.

a. Which product has higher reliability?

b. Which product has better maintainability?

c. Which product has greater availability?

4. Recall a bad service experience that you recently had.

What led to the service failure? Consider such dimen

sions as tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance,

or empathy.

5. Suppose you manufacture 10,000 wooden pencils per

day. What would be an appropriate quality planning and

control system for this product? Consider such factors as

product attributes, measures of quality, tests, and so forth.

6. Can you name products and services that, in your

opinion, have relatively poor quality? Relatively high

quality? Are companies that provide better quality more

successful? How can you tell?

7. How can supplier certification contribute to quality

products or services? Should all suppliers be certified?

Why or why not?

8. What products have recently been recalled? Why? Check

the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission website.

9. Which of the four manufacturing quality dimensions are

most likely to improve revenue? Which ones are related

more to cost reduction or to both revenue and cost?

10. The following costs have been recorded:

Incoming materials inspection $20,000

Training of personnel 40,000

Warranty 45,000

Process planning 15,000

Scrap 13,000

Quality laboratory 30,000

Rework 25,000

Allowances 10,000

Complaints 14,000

What are the costs of prevention, appraisal, external

failure, and internal failure?

11. Which of Deming’s 14 points do you agree with and

which ones do you disagree with?

12. Contrast and compare the Deming and Juran approaches

to quality improvement. How different are these two

approaches?

13. Why is ISO 9000 considered a first step or a basic

approach to quality?

14. Critique the seven categories used by the Baldrige Award.

Are there some items that you think are missing?

15. Compare the Baldrige-based approach to the use of

ISO 9000.

16. What are some of the barriers to a successful quality

implementation effort?