Production Planning, Productivity and Quality Management — Practice

Question 1

Name the four stages of Production Planning and Control in sequence.

Accepted Answer

Routing, scheduling, dispatching, follow-up.

Question 2

What is the formula for productivity?

Accepted Answer

Productivity = Output ÷ Input.

Question 3

Which Cost of Quality bucket does a warranty claim from a customer fall into?

Accepted Answer

External failure cost.

Question 4

An operation is observed to take 10 minutes and the observer's rating factor is 120%. Allowances are 15% of normal time. Find the standard time.

Accepted Answer

Normal Time = 10 x 1.20 = 12 minutes. Allowances = 15% x 12 = 1.8 minutes. Standard Time = 12 + 1.8 = 13.8 minutes.

Question 5

Distinguish level production from chase production as strategies for meeting seasonal demand.

Accepted Answer

Level production keeps a steady production rate and builds inventory ahead of peak demand, incurring carrying cost. Chase production varies workforce or overtime with demand, avoiding inventory buildup but incurring hiring, overtime or layoff costs.

Question 6

Why is external failure cost usually considered the most damaging of the four Cost of Quality buckets, even when its rupee figure looks smaller than internal failure cost?

Accepted Answer

External failure cost includes reputational damage and lost future business that are hard to quantify but often larger in real economic impact than the visible rupee cost of a warranty claim or recall alone.

Question 7

A firm's labour productivity rose 8% this year purely because it replaced manual handling with new machinery, without any change in worker skill or effort. Explain why Total Factor Productivity is a more complete measure than labour productivity alone in this situation.

Accepted Answer

Labour productivity only measures output against labour input, so substituting capital (machinery) for labour effort can raise it even without any genuine efficiency gain. Total Factor Productivity measures output against a weighted combination of labour, capital, material and energy together, so it would correctly show that the improvement came from added capital investment rather than from the firm becoming more efficient overall.

Question 8

Explain, with the PDCA cycle, why a quality improvement should be tested on a small scale before being rolled out factory-wide.

Accepted Answer

The PDCA (Deming) cycle requires Plan (design the change), Do (implement on a small scale), Check (measure whether it actually improved the outcome) and Act (standardise if it worked, abandon if it did not) before repeating. Testing on a small scale first limits the cost and disruption of an improvement that turns out not to work, and provides real measured evidence before a factory-wide commitment is made.

Practice — Production Planning, Productivity and Quality Management

Sign in to save attempts to your dashboard and track your accuracy over time

Find a verified tutor

Join a live course

Browse coaching centres

About

Categories

Support

Documentation

Get Study Tips & Updates

Download Our App

Download for iOS

Download for Android

Popular Cities