Deck 16: Organizational Control and Quality Improvement

Question 1

The control function involves preventive or corrective actions.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Objectives can be used as yardsticks for measuring actual performance.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

"Preventive maintenance" is another term for concurrent control.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Typically, long-range plans include five-year financial projections.

Question 5

Although Google is well known for being an excellent company, its launch of the Nexus One smartphone reveals that every company is capable of mistakes.

Question 6

If a manager relies on feedback control, he or she does not have to use any other type of control.

Question 7

Apple used the hotel concierge as inspiration for developing their retail stores and the Genius Bar.

Question 8

An example of feedforward control is when a farmer decides to harvest his corn crops ahead of schedule to prevent a total loss of product when the Hurricane arrives (which is forecast to pass directly over the farm in a couple of days).

Question 9

An example of an ideal organizational control situation is a small business such as local bike shop that is run by a highly motivated expert.

Question 10

The organization's culture is a control subsystem.

Question 11

Work standards, objectives, and policies are the three basic components of organizational control systems.

Question 12

If they are well conceived, strategies and plans guarantee organizational success.

Question 13

One of the three basic components common to all organizational control systems is an evaluation-reward system.

Question 14

Examples of control subsystems are policies and procedures.

Question 15

The reason for the control function is always the same: get the job done unless environmental and behavioral obstacles exist.

Question 16

Control is the process of formulating, implementing, and evaluating strategies.

Question 17

Benchmarking is good for setting challenging organizational standards.

Question 18

Whereas standards serve as measurable targets, objectives serve as guideposts on the way to reaching those targets.

Question 19

The three types of organizational control are feedforward, concurrent, and feedback control.

Question 20

Concurrent control involves learning from past mistakes.

Question 21

In today's age of social media, organizations include resources such as YouTube and Twitter as part of their crisis management tool kit.

Question 22

Sources of organizational crisis only come from external threats.

Question 23

The essence of executive reality checking is hiring outside consultants to monitor how well the organization is doing.

Question 24

Employee dissatisfaction can be a sign of inadequate control.

Question 25

External audits are precisely the same as internal audits.

Question 26

The hallmarks of an effective crisis management team are quick response and effective communication.

Question 27

Company's committed to quality goods and services would do well to strive for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award as one of the benefits is free media attention.

Question 28

Dow Chemical Canada is an excellent example of a company who put a crisis management team in place and was ultimately recognized for their quick response during an accident.

Question 29

The four elements in a crisis management program are anticipate, plan, staff, and practice.

Question 30

Internal auditors should be overseen by the head of the accounting department.

Question 31

Objectives based on corporate vision translate down and control measures of results translate up the performance pyramid of strategic control.

Question 32

According to Philip Crosby, "conformance to requirements" is the basic definition of quality.

Question 33

Whenever possible, each contingency plan should specify early warning signals.

Question 34

A "shadow plan" is a back-up plan that can be put into effect when things go wrong.

Question 35

Crisis management was traditionally viewed negatively, as "managerial firefighting", where companies waited for things to go wrong, then reacted to minimize the damage.

Question 36

Control and strategic planning need to be tightly linked.

Question 37

Flexibility and cycle times are two components of the performance pyramid for strategic control.

Question 38

Crisis management involves anticipating and preparing for events that could cause damage to the organization.

Question 39

An organizational crisis is a high-probability, low-impact event with a clear cause and effect relationship.

Question 40

External audits have been called process audits.

Question 41

Another name for value-based quality is manufacturing-based quality.

Question 42

"Assurance" was identified by Texas A&M researchers as one of the five service quality dimensions.

Question 43

Companies striving for quality service should follow the lead of companies such as L.L. Bean, Inc. where the motto is "no sale is really complete until the product is worn out and the customer is satisfied."

Question 44

According to the Texas A&M researchers, "responsiveness" was the most important service quality dimension for customers.

Question 45

There is a direct trade-off between lower costs and higher quality. Managers can achieve one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Question 46

Service operations tend to be labor intensive.

Question 47

To increase efficiency and eliminate unnecessary steps, managers should consider using flowcharts.

Question 48

By definition, empowerment calls for training and fair rewards for results.

Question 49

Because they are intangible, services cannot be measured.

Question 50

TQM managers dedicated to kaizen are never happy with the final outcome of a project.

Question 51

"Zero defects" is one of the four principles of total quality management.

Question 52

The vast majority of the U.S. labor force works in the manufacturing sector.

Question 53

One similarity between service and manufacturing jobs is that customers are intimately involved in the production process in both sectors.

Question 54

The slogan, "do it right the first time" encourages employees to accept responsibility for quality improvement.

Question 55

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" describes transcendent quality.

Question 56

TQM has no connection with the organization's culture (an internal factor) because it is customer-driven (an external force).

Question 57

Empowering employees at all levels is an essential component of TQM.

Question 58

TQM advocates like the concept of teams.

Question 59

The 80/20 principle is the basis for statistical process control charts.

Question 60

According to experts, getting a new customer costs five times more than keeping a current customer.

Question 61

During the control function, executives such as Michael Dell are likely to use ________ as yardsticks for measuring performance.

A) organization charts
B) budgets
C) strategic plans
D) operational plans
E) objectives

Question 62

The process of taking the necessary preventive or corrective actions to keep things on track refers to

A) control.
B) crisis management.
C) quality.
D) benchmarking.
E) kaizen.

Question 63

One of Deming's 14 points recommends getting rid of numerical quotas.

Question 64

According to Deming, technology is the most important part of the production line.

Question 65

____ is the active anticipation of problems and their timely prevention rather than after-the-fact reaction.

A) Feedforward control
B) Benchmarking
C) Feedback control
D) Kaizen control
E) Concurrent control

Question 66

When Apple launched their retail stores that looked to _________as inspiration for their Genius Bar.

A) wealthy customers
B) the hotel concierge desk
C) seniors
D) children
E) celebrity customers

Question 67

A histogram would be appropriate for plotting the correlation between two variables.

Question 68

The value of observed data and experimentation is emphasized in Deming's PDCA cycle.

Question 69

____ control is what Robyn uses when she performs regular maintenance on her mountain bike to make sure it stays in good working condition.

A) Concurrent
B) Secondary
C) Primary
D) Feedback
E) Feedforward

Question 70

Deming's quality management philosophy is a direct outgrowth of Taylor's scientific management.

Question 71

Companies such as Google and Apple teach us that strategies, plans and a commitment to quality does not guarantee desired results. _____________ and plans need to be updated as _____________are inevitable.

A) Strategies; adjustments
B) Policies; disasters
C) Behaviors; adjustments
D) Teams; profits
E) Strategies; disasters

Question 72

According to Deming's 14 points, quality-by-inspection is central to any successful quality improvement effort.

Question 73

Avoidance of slogans and targets is advocated by Deming's 14 points.

Question 74

Deming blamed the system 3/4 management, rules, technology, structures and culture 3/4 for at least 85 percent of quality problems.

Question 75

Deming believed quality improvement drives the entire economy, in short, everyone wins when quality improves.

Question 76

A scatter diagram would be appropriate if a manager wanted to plot the relationship between two product characteristics, such as a golf club's thickness and flexibility.

Question 77

According to Deming, scientific management led to rigid and autocratic organizations that are unresponsive to customers and employees alike.

Question 78

The transformation to Deming management is not just the manager's job, but everyone's job.

Question 79

A run chart could be used to keep a tally of manufacturing defects that occur based on the day of the week.

Question 80

What type of control is a restaurant owner using when she anticipates and prepares for a potential power outage during a hurricane by installing a generator?

A) Feedback
B) Concurrent
C) Preliminary
D) Proactive
E) Feedforward