Quality Control & Process Improvement Flashcards
7 cards from real RMA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Quality Control & Process Improvement flashcards as text
A retirement firm adopts a Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy. Which element is most central to TQM?
Answer: Continuous improvement driven by customer focus and employee involvement
TQM centers on continuous improvement, customer satisfaction, and engaging all employees in quality efforts throughout the organization.
An RMA adviser notices that client withdrawal strategy errors spike every Monday morning. Which quality tool is best for visualizing this time-based pattern?
Answer: Run chart
A run chart plots data points over time, making it ideal for identifying trends, cycles, or time-based patterns in a process.
In the context of retirement plan administration, which of the following best describes 'internal failure costs'?
Answer: Costs of fixing errors discovered before the client receives the plan
Internal failure costs are incurred when defects are caught and corrected before delivery to the customer, such as rework and scrap.
A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt at a retirement firm identifies that advisers spend 30% of their time searching for client documents. Which type of waste does this represent?
Answer: Motion waste
Motion waste refers to unnecessary movement of people (searching, walking) that does not add value to the product or service.
A retirement advisory firm wants to determine if there is a relationship between hours of adviser training and number of client plan errors. Which quality tool should they use?
Answer: Scatter diagram
A scatter diagram plots two variables against each other to reveal potential correlations or relationships between them.
Which concept describes the maximum acceptable number of errors per million opportunities that a Six Sigma process should produce?
Answer: 3.4 DPMO
A Six Sigma process produces no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, representing near-perfect quality.
A retirement firm's process improvement team uses a 5 Whys analysis after clients report receiving incorrect Social Security optimization advice. What is the primary goal of this technique?
Answer: To identify the root cause by repeatedly asking why a problem occurred
The 5 Whys technique drills down to the root cause of a problem by iteratively asking 'why' until the fundamental cause is uncovered.