Quality Control & Process Improvement Flashcards

A regional travel program manager receives traveler feedback that airport transfer pickups are frequently late. Which process improvement action should come FIRST?

Answer: Map the current pickup process to identify where delays originate

Process mapping reveals exactly where in the transfer workflow delays occur before any corrective action or supplier decision is made.

What does 'cost of poor quality' (COPQ) include in a travel management context?

Answer: All costs from defects including rework, complaints, refunds, and lost client revenue

COPQ encompasses all costs arising from failure to meet quality standards: internal failures like rework and external failures like refunds and lost clients.

A TMC wants to reduce callback volume in its traveler support center. Which lean technique involves analyzing why a problem occurred five successive times to expose the underlying cause?

Answer: 5 Whys analysis

The 5 Whys technique iteratively asks 'why' to drill past symptoms to the true root cause driving the problem.

In quality auditing of a travel program, 'internal audit' differs from 'external audit' primarily because:

Answer: Internal audits are conducted by organization staff while external audits are conducted by independent third parties

Internal audits are self-assessments conducted by trained staff within the organization; external audits are performed by independent outside parties.

A corporate travel program tracks 'first contact resolution' (FCR) as a quality KPI. What does a high FCR rate indicate?

Answer: Traveler issues are resolved during the initial contact without follow-up interactions

High FCR means agents resolve traveler issues completely in the first interaction, reflecting both efficiency and service quality.

Which of the following quality management principles from ISO 9001 is MOST directly applied when a travel program regularly reviews supplier scorecards with hotel and airline partners?

Answer: Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

Regular scorecard reviews operationalize the ISO 9001 principle of mutually beneficial supplier relationships by creating transparency and shared improvement goals.

When a travel agency implements an error-proofing (poka-yoke) technique in its online booking tool, what is the intended outcome?

Answer: Preventing defects from occurring by designing the system to make errors impossible or immediately visible

Poka-yoke devices prevent errors at the source by redesigning processes or tools so that mistakes either cannot occur or are caught immediately.