Ch 9

1. A group of students organizes a bake sale in which they sell hundreds of cookies at $1 per piece. They set up a
table on campus and wait for students to come and purchase their cookies. Consider the following variables in
this bake sale operation:

1. Size of the cookies

2. Weather conditions on campus

3. Organization of the table

4. Number of cookies sold

5. Competition from other fund-raisers coinciding on campus

6. Amount of advertising and shouting of the students at the bake sale table

7. Number of students on campus that day

Which of these variables are input variables?

a. 1 and 2

b. 1 and 3

c. 1, 3, and 5

d. 1, 3, and 6

Answer: d Input variables are “Size of the cookies,” “Organization of the table,” and “Amount of advertising
and shouting of the students at the bake sale table.”

2. A group of students organizes a bake sale in which they sell hundreds of cookies at $1 per piece. They set up a
table on campus and wait for students to come and purchase their cookies. Consider the following variables in
this bake sale operation:

1. Size of the cookies

2. Weather conditions on campus

3. Organization of the table

4. Number of cookies sold

5. Competition from other fund-raisers coinciding on campus

6. Amount of advertising and shouting of the students at the bake sale table

7. Number of students on campus that day

Which of these variables is an output variable?

a. 3

b. 4
 c. 5

d. None of the above

Answer: b. The output variable is “Number of cookies sold.”

3. A group of students organizes a bake sale in which they sell hundreds of cookies at $1 per piece. They set up a
table on campus and wait for students to come and purchase their cookies. Consider the following variables in
this bake sale operation:

1. Size of the cookies

2. Weather conditions on campus

3. Organization of the table

4. Number of cookies sold

5. Competition from other fund-raisers coinciding on campus

6. Amount of advertising and shouting of the students at the bake sale table

7. Number of students on campus that day

Which of these variables is/are the environmental variable(s)?

a. 2

b. 2 and 5

c. 2, 5, and 7

d. None of the above

Answer: c. Environmental variables include “Weather conditions on campus,” “Competition from other fund-
raisers coinciding on campus,” and “Number of students on campus that day.” All these variables are outside of
the control of the bake sale, yet they influence the output variable.

4. John is a varsity runner specializing in the one-mile distance. His coach instructs John on every first Saturday of
the month to run one mile at full speed. The coach then uses the times to determine the appropriate training
intensity for John. This week, the coach compares the March time with the April time and the times differ by 3
seconds. Which of the following are some common cause variations?

a. Some inherent variation in the measurement of the time

b. A strong head wind

c. The training effect over the last month

d. None of the above

Answer: a.

LO9-2
5. A fast-food company is preparing beef patties for their burgers. The lower specification limit for the burger is
240 grams and the upper specification limit is 260 grams. The standard deviation is 4 grams and the mean is 250
grams.

What is the process capability index for the beef patty production?

Answer: We compute the process capability index as

6. Consider again the beef patty production process that has a lower specification limit of 240 grams and an upper
specification limit of 260 grams. The standard deviation is 4 grams and the mean is 250 grams.

What is the probability that a beef patty is either too light or too heavy? How many defects would there be in one
million beef patties?

Answer: We first compute the probability of the beef patty being too light.

This is given by

Probability{Too light} = NORM.DIST(240, 250, 4, 1) = 0.00621

We then compute the other probabilities.

Probability{Too heavy} = 1 - NORM.DIST(260, 250, 4, 1) = 0.00621

Probability{Part defective} = 0.00621 + 0.00621 = 0.012419

We compute the ppm (parts per million) as 0.012419 1,000,000 = 12,419.

Note that we had previously found that the capability index of this process is 0.8333. We can also use Table
9.1 and look up the defect probability and the ppm there for Cp = 0.8333. Because Cp = 0.8333 itself is not in the
table, we have to look at the closest two values, which are Cp = 0.8 and Cp = 0.8666. For Cp = 0.8, we see a
defect probability (ppm) of 0.016395 (16,395), and for Cp = 0.8666, we see a defect probability (ppm) of
0.009322 (9,322). This is consistent with our earlier result.

LO9-3

8. For 100 consecutive days, a company making nutritional supplements has measured the amount of a protein the
company puts into its protein bars. Each day, the company takes a sample of 6 protein bars. The average across
all 600 bars was 31.232 grams. The standard deviation was 0.83291 gram. When constructing an X-bar chart,
what would be the center line?

a. The center line would be given by the average across all 600 bars; that is, it would be 31.232 grams.

b. The center line would be given by the standard deviation; that is, it would be 0.83291 gram.

c. The center line would be 100.

d. None of the above

Answer: a.

9. For 100 consecutive days, a company making nutritional supplements has measured the amount of a protein the
company puts into its protein bars. Each day, the company takes a sample of 6 protein bars. The average across
 all 600 bars was 31.232 grams. The standard deviation was 0.83291 gram. When constructing an X-bar chart,
what would the upper control limit be?

a. 30.2119

b. 31.232

c. 32.2521

d. None of the above

Answer: c. To find the control limits, we first have to estimate the standard deviation for the daily X-bar sample.
We use the equation

We then find the upper control limit as

LO9-4

10. Consider the following data related to complaints about a restaurant that were made on Yelp. Figure 9.15 lists
the causes for the complaints. The frequency counts are shown below the figure.

Figure 9.15
Complaints on Yelp

 Food was too cold: 2

 Bad taste: 3

 Portions too small: 4

 Grumpy waiters: 1
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 Waiter talked too much and interrupted the meal: 15

 Long wait for a table: 22

  Waiting for the food: 7

 Noisy air conditioner: 9

 Loud music: 2

 Too many people rushing by: 5

 Odor: 3

Which of the following statements do you agree with?

a. This looks like very noisy data, because some root causes have a high frequency and some a low frequency.

b. This looks like data following the Pareto principle, which states that a few root causes explain the majority
of the problems.

c. None of the above

Answer: b.

LO9-5

11. Which of the following statements best describes the idea of foolproofing?

a. Avoid the recruitment of foolish operators by following best practices in recruiting.

b. Avoid the situation that an operator who made or is about to make a mistake can complete the task.

c. Avoid the situation that an operator who made a mistake is allowed to stay with the company.

d. None of the above

Answer: b.

LO9-6

12. An airline call center makes travel reservations over the phone. A customer and an agent discuss the travel
plans; the agent then books the flight and sends a confirmation e-mail to the customer. In 0.5 percent of the
cases, the customer and the agent miscommunicate, confusing the travel destination (one recent flight was
booked to Porto instead of Bordeaux). In 99.8 percent of the time, the agent books the way she understood the
customer. In the other 0.2 percent of the cases, the agent makes a data entry mistake. What is the probability
that the data are entered correctly?

Answer: There are two variables with two outcomes each, so we are dealing with 2 2= 4 possible scenarios. In
order for the flight to be booked correctly, we need the agent and the customer to have communicated correctly
(happens 99.5 percent of the time) and then the flight must have been booked correctly (happens 99.8 percent
of the time).

We find the probability that the data are entered correctly as

Prob{Data entered correctly} = Prob{Communicated correctly} × Prob{Data entered correctly} = 0.995 ×

0.998 = 0.99301
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LO9-7
13. The health care system wants to encourage a healthy lifestyle. All doctors are asked to speak with all their
patients about healthy eating in every visit. Every week, the health care system takes a random sample of 100
patients seen in the week and asks them if the doctor that they saw this week had brought up the topic of
healthy eating.

Across all weeks, the average percentage of visits in which healthy eating was brought up is 91 percent. What
would be the center line in the resulting p-chart?

a. 100 percent

b. 9 percent

c. 91 percent

d. None of the above

Answer: b.

14. The health care system wants to encourage a healthy lifestyle. All doctors are asked to speak with all their
patients about healthy eating during every visit. Every week, a health care system takes a random sample of
100 patients seen in the week and asks them if the doctor they saw this week had brought up the topic of
healthy eating.

Across all weeks, the average percentage of visits in which healthy eating was brought up is 91 percent. What
would be the upper control limit in the resulting p-chart?

a. 0.0819

b. 0.004145

c. 0.175855

d. 0.9

e. None of the above

Answer: c. We first create the center line at 9 percent (this is the 100 percent total minus the 91 percent
correct). We then compute the estimated standard deviation as follows:

We then compute the upper control limit based on:

UCL = + (3 × Estimated standard deviation) = 0.09 + (3 × 0.028618) = 0.175855