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SEMESTER 2

2022/23

NBS8229

QUALITY MANAGEMENT, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

PERSONAL PROJECT

Section A: Tools & Techniques Quiz

Answers to questions in this section require no more than 50 words each.

1.   Quantitative variables can be discrete or continuous.  Explain the difference between discrete data and continuous data, and give one example (related to Quality Management) of each.

2.   A measure of location is a quantity which is ‘typical’ of the data.  Give the names of three such measures, and explain (in words, not formulae) how each is found.

3.   A random sample of data yields the histogram shown in Figure 1.  Suggest a suitable measure of location and a suitable measure of dispersion for these data and explain your reasoning.

4.   Total Quality Management peaked in popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has since been overshadowed by Six Sigma. Briefly explain some reasons for this.

5.   Explain how Affinity Diagrams and Fishbone Diagrams are similar yet different.

6.   A Strategy Map illustrates how objectives belonging to the 4 Balanced Scorecard perspectives       (Learning & Growth / Internal / Customer / Financial) are related to each other. Explain the general cause and effect relationship between the perspective objectives.

7.   Does a Gage Repeatability & Reproducibility Study quantify the precision or the accuracy of a measurement system? Explain your answer.

8.   Explain the relationship between the 2-Sample t-test and One-Way ANOVA.

9.   Explain what residuals are and how we use them to check adequacy of predictive models.

10. If you have 8factors, each with 2 levels, and you intend to analyse them in a half-fractional design, how many trials will you need to carry out? Explain your answer.

Section B: Longer Questions

Answers to questions in this section require no more than 500 words each.

Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 require you to use your own personal dataset.  You should have already made a note of your personal dataset number; if not, follow the instructions on the front of this paper.

As above, enter Canvas and click on NBS8229. In Modules click on Project, and click the file ‘Project Data 2022’, then, if your personal number is say, 21, find the worksheet tab at the bottom numbered 21.

Question 1 (10 marks)

The data in column A are the times (in days) for customers to receive their orders from a technology company – Pineapple Inc. – for the most recent 100 orders of tablet computers. The data is in time order so the first value is the oldest observation and the last value is the newest observation.

(a)  Summarise the data numerically using suitable measures of location and dispersion. Produce appropriate

graphical summaries of your data and interpret them. Comment on the shape of the sample distribution. Does the data appear to be approximately normally distributed? (5 marks)

(b) Pineapple know that historically the mean and standard deviation of the delivery times were 10 and 3

respectively, prior to when this data was collected, and they would like to know whether the process has changed since then. Produce an appropriate chart and interpret it. Comment on whether there has been a change. What would your recommendations be? (3 marks)

(c)  Pineapple are considering calculating a Capability metric to quantify how good their delivery service is. Which metric should they use and why? (2 marks)

Question 2 (10 marks)

The data in columns B and C are the failure times (in months) of a random sample of 50 tablets that Pineapple engineers have tested in-house. Of these 50 tablets, the majority broke (denoted by a 1) but some were still     working (denoted by a 0) when the study ended. Pineapple are interested in the percentage of tablets that fail  before the warranty period (24 months).

(a)  Explain the terms population and sample, and the need to study the latter rather than the former in the

context of Reliability Analysis. (2 marks)

(b) The study ended at 180 months. An engineer suggests the failure time for the units that are still working

should be estimated to occur at exactly 181 months, to simplify the analysis. Why would this be a bad idea? (2 marks)

(c)  Carry out a Reliability Analysis on the data and include relevant output in your solutions and interpret your results. Answer the question Pineapple are interested in. (4 marks)

(d) If the data hadn’t been censored, one approach to estimating the probability of a tablet’s lifetime being less than 24 months would be to count the number of observations less than 24, and divide that by 50. Apply this approach to your data and record your answer, and then explain the limitations of this logic, and why it’s better to use distribution theory to generate probabilities. (2 marks)

Question 3 (10 marks)

The data in columns D and E are failure modes and frequencies because the tablets can fail in different ways (e.g. frozen screen, won’t turn on, won’t charge, won’t connect to Wi-Fi, unresponsive touchscreen, random crashing).

(a)  Produce a chart which will allow Pineapple to visualise the frequencies of the failure modes and

interpret it. (2 marks)

(b) As well as frequencies, Pineapple evaluate ‘customer dissatisfaction at the effect ofthe failure mode’ on

a scale 1- 10, and ‘the risk the failure mode will escape detection by any in-built mechanism’ on a scale 1- 10. Use columns F and G (as well as D and E) to create a new chart which will allow Pineapple to visualise the impact of the failure modes and interpret it. (3 marks)

Section C: Critical Appraisal (1000 words)

A number of Quality Management (or Process Improvement) Strategies have been established and subsequently applied by practitioners and various organisations throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Such examples are Statistical Process Control (SPC), The Shainin System, Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma and Quality Circles. Mainly the initial application and observed benefits of these strategies have been witnessed within the manufacturing sector but more recently, successful case studies have been reported within service sector organisations.

Find a technical paper which is a case study of a Quality Management strategy being applied within an organisation and describe the methods used. What assumptions have the practitioners made in their applications of the tools & techniques? Comment critically on the data collection, presentation, analysis and interpretation ofthe results. What were the conclusions? What were the benefits? What went wrong? What went right? What, in your opinion, could have been done differently? You should try to cover these details in no more than two sides of A4 paper.  Attach a copy of the paper to your report. Please try to ensure that you are describing a different paper to your colleagues.

(20 marks)