PT205 – CQI and IRCA Practitioner Managing Problem Solving Examination [paper 2][v3]

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.1

What do the letters FMEA stand for?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.2

Which of the following statements is correct about an FMEA?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.3

When constructing an FMEA what does ‘Occurrence’ and ‘Detection’ represent?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.4

A process improvement team has produced an FMEA identifying the risks within the process but are now arguing over how to prioritise these risks. What advice would enable the team to identify where efforts should be made to address the risk that they have identified?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.5

A product development team are using an FMEA to improve their design. They are concerned that for all the identified issues their RPN values are all very close together. What advice would be useful to them?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 1 – Governance

Question 1.6

An improvement team are using an FMEA to evaluate a change to a process. Although they have had several sessions to construct the FMEA they feel they do not have enough rows defining potential errors/failures. What actions should they take?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.1

The “5 Whys” are useful in problem solving for which of the following reasons?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.2

Which of the following is the purpose of a Cause and Effect diagram?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.3

Which of the following statements describe a valid root cause?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.4

Which of the following can be used in the process of selecting potential solutions to a problem?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.5

What advice could be given to an improvement project leader who is preparing for an idea generation session with their team?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 2 – Assurance

Question 2.6

A team are using a solution selection matrix and are looking for solutions that are simple to implement and low cost. Which of the following criteria are effective to use as part of the matrix?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.1

Which of the following statements about control charts is true?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.2

What is the purpose of a Scatter Diagram?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.3

A vertical integrated flowchart shows a process step spanning the lanes of two departments (A and B) with the output of the process leaving in the lane of department
B and on to a process step in the lane of department C. What is this part of the flowchart describing?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.4

An improvement team are trying to identify potential problem areas within a process and had planned to use a process flow chart to do this.

However, they have encountered problems creating the flow chart as the language they each use to describe the various stages of the process is leading to confusion. What would help the team progress with the establishment of their process flow chart?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.5

As part of a problem-solving activity a team are studying the cause and effect relationship between customer satisfaction and call volume in their customer service centre. They find a scatter graph indicates a weak negative relationship. Which of the following is good advice on their next steps?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 3 – Improvement

Question 3.6

When visiting a customer contact centre, you see a control chart (where higher values indicate worse performance) with many data points running above the upper control limit. The team leader explains this has been the case since his team was reduced from 6 to 5 operators. What advice would help the team leader?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 4 – Context

Question 4.1

In the 8-step problem solving structure which is the correct sequence/order of the first four stages?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 4 – Context

Question 4.2

Following a successful 8-step problem solving project, the team are discussing their successes. One member of the team states, “It took some effort but, now everything’s in place, we shouldn’t see that problem coming up anywhere again.” and another states, “Until we fully understood the problem we made slow progress at the beginning”.

What two steps in the 8-step problem solving process are the two team members talking about?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 4 – Context

Question 4.3

What are the benefits of the application of the 8-step problem solving structure?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 4 – Context

Question 4.4

Which three of the following represent poor root cause definitions?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.1

Which of the following tools would best help a team who are trying to locate the source of a problem?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.2

Which of the following statements best describes the activities to carry out in the Plan stage of the PDCA cycle?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.3

Which of the following types of problem is best suited to a structured problem-solving approach?

(select ONE answer) (1 mark)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.4

Which two of the following help set a manageable scope for a problem-solving activity?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.5

You have completed an evaluation on four potential solutions using PDCA, and all four turned out to be negative, i.e. the changes did not solve the problem. What should be the next steps?

(select TWO answers) (2 marks)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.6

A problem-solving team are having difficulties developing the project charter to define the project that they are starting to work on. So far, they have written “The response time to customer enquires is too long and inadequate and needs to be improved.” What additional factors about the project would the team need to include in their project charter to make it effective?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.7

A team has invited you to their brown paper presentations at the end of each stage of a problem-solving activity using the 8-step structure. What are the most effective questions that should be asked in the final step review?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)

Section 5 – Leadership

Question 5.8

A senior management team believe they will achieve improved customer satisfaction through the introduction of a new teamwork structure. They want to use PDCA but have been given some conflicting advice on how to proceed. Which of the following extracts is effective advice?

(select THREE answers) (3 marks)