CQE (CQE) Course 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A company tracks customer complaints, field failures, and returned goods. These metrics primarily measure which cost of quality category?
- Prevention
- Appraisal
- Internal failure
- External failure (Correct answer)
Correct answer: External failure
Customer complaints, field failures, and returns occur after product delivery, making them external failure costs.
Question 2: Which chart would a quality engineer use to monitor the average of a continuous variable in subgroups of size 5?
- Individuals (I) chart
- X̄-R chart (Correct answer)
- p chart
- EWMA chart
Correct answer: X̄-R chart
The X̄-R (Xbar-R) chart is the standard control chart for monitoring subgroup means and ranges when subgroup size is between 2 and 10.
Question 3: In reliability engineering, MTBF stands for:
- Mean Time Before Failure
- Minimum Time Between Failures
- Mean Time Between Failures (Correct answer)
- Maximum Threshold Before Failure
Correct answer: Mean Time Between Failures
MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is the average time elapsed between one failure and the next for a repairable system.
Question 4: A supplier delivers a lot of 1,000 parts. Using ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 with an AQL of 1.0% at normal inspection level II, the engineer selects a sample. If the sample contains more defectives than the acceptance number, the lot is:
- 100% inspected and defectives replaced (Correct answer)
- Automatically scrapped
- Rejected and returned to the supplier
- Switched to tightened inspection
Correct answer: 100% inspected and defectives replaced
When a lot is rejected under acceptance sampling, the standard practice is 100% inspection of the lot and replacement of nonconforming items.
Question 5: Which tool is used to systematically evaluate and rank alternative solutions using weighted criteria?
- Affinity diagram
- Interrelationship digraph
- Decision matrix (weighted criteria matrix) (Correct answer)
- Scatter diagram
Correct answer: Decision matrix (weighted criteria matrix)
A decision matrix applies weighted scores to each alternative against defined criteria, enabling objective comparison and selection.
Question 6: In a scatter diagram, a strong negative correlation between two variables means:
- As one variable increases, the other also increases
- As one variable increases, the other decreases (Correct answer)
- There is no relationship between the variables
- The variables are identical
Correct answer: As one variable increases, the other decreases
A strong negative correlation (r close to −1) indicates that higher values of one variable consistently correspond to lower values of the other.
Question 7: A quality management system audit that evaluates compliance against a standard such as ISO 9001 is classified as a:
- Process audit
- Product audit
- System audit (Correct answer)
- Supplier audit
Correct answer: System audit
A system audit examines the entire quality management system against a standard or documented requirements, rather than a single process or product.
CQE (CQE) Course 4
A company tracks customer complaints, field failures, and returned goods.
These metrics primarily measure which cost of quality category?