Deck 22: Quality and Productivity: Sides of the Same Coin

Question 1

Excellence became a fashionable business term during the 1990s, in the way that management-by-objectives was fashionable during the 1980s.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

When a philosophy of management is over-proceduralized, over-promoted, over-publicized, and over-praised, it becomes a fad that usually does not last long.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The major strength of total quality management lies in its array of new-but-proven tools and techniques.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The crucial ingredient essential for the success of total quality management is a solid and totally committed staff of first-line supervisors.

Question 5

The challenge of productivity improvement is essentially the challenge of measurement; that is, the development of some kind of standards.

Question 6

Cost escalation and productivity in healthcare organizations is a new present-day concern to which the industry has not yet fully awakened.

Question 7

Productivity deserves attention because the costs of health care cannot be allowed to continue increasing out of proportion to all other sectors of the economy.

Question 8

In the coming years, concern for productivity will be concentrated on methods-improvement activities almost exclusively.

Question 9

Productivity may be said to be improved if output is increased while input is held constant or decreased and quality is held constant.

Question 10

It is not possible to reduce costs without adversely affecting quality or decreasing output.

Question 11

The difference between quality control and quality assurance is:

A) Quality assurance addresses errors but quality control dos not.
B) Quality control focuses on finding defects; quality assurance focuses on preventing errors.
C) Quality assurance corrects mistakes; quality control simply rejects errors.
D) There is no difference between them.

Question 12

Productivity can be said to be improved if:

A) Output is increased while input is held constant or decreased and quality is held constant.
B) Input is decreased while output is held constant or increased while quality is held constant.
C) Quality is improved while input and output are held constant or reduced
D) All of the above.

Question 13

Six Sigma is essentially based on the following premise:

A) Business processes have characteristics that can be analyzed, measured, improved, and controlled.
B) Sustained quality improvement requires rank-and-file employee commitment.
C) A major one-time effort to reduce variations in processes is of vital importance to organizational success.
D) None of the above.

Question 14

For total quality management to work, the majority of employees need to see the organization as:

A) Committed to a complete reengineering effort.
B) Willing to merge with another for economies of scale.
C) More than just a place to work for a paycheck.
D) An employer that promises a no-layoff guarantee.

Question 15

An apparent objective of the National Commission on Productivity and Work Quality was:

A) To move the system away from its excessive focus on methods of reimbursement.
B) To expand implementation of health maintenance organizations and other comprehensive fee-paid health plans.
C) To slow the pace of organizational mergers throughout the health care system.
D) Limit the roles of physicians and administrators in governing board activities.

Question 16

_____________ became a magic word in health care organizations during the latter half of the 1960s.

Question 17

________________ ordinarily concentrates on finding defects and rejecting defective products.

Question 18

In most instances applications of total quality management and other such programs, top management commitment is usually a matter of _______.

Question 19

It is usually clear that changes in management _________ may have to occur for a quality management program to succeed.

Question 20

The quality issue cannot be separated from the ____________ issue; one has direct implications for the other, and there is a direct relationship between them.