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 planning firm implements a 5S program in its operations. Which of the following is NOT one of the 5S steps?
Answer: Streamline (Seiryu)
The 5S steps are Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain; 'Streamline' is not one of the five.
During a retirement plan quality review, an adviser discovers that the same data is being entered into three separate systems. Which lean waste category does this represent?
Answer: Overprocessing
Overprocessing waste occurs when more work is done than is required by the customer, such as redundant data entry across systems.
A financial firm sets a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that 95% of retirement income projections must be delivered within 5 business days. After process improvement, the average is 4 days but 12% of cases exceed 5 days. What should the team focus on?
Answer: Reducing variation in delivery time to bring outliers within the target
When the average meets the target but outliers still fail the KPI, reducing variation (not shifting the average) is the correct focus.
A retirement firm uses a balanced scorecard to track quality. Which of the four perspectives measures internal process quality most directly?
Answer: Internal business process perspective
The internal business process perspective of the balanced scorecard evaluates the efficiency and quality of the firm's operational processes.
An RMA firm conducts a process capability study and finds Cpk = 0.65 for its retirement plan review process. What does this indicate?
Answer: The process is not capable and produces defects outside specifications
A Cpk below 1.0 indicates the process is not capable of consistently meeting specifications, producing output outside acceptable limits.
Which of the following best describes the difference between quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) in a retirement advisory context?
Answer: QA focuses on preventing defects through process design; QC focuses on detecting defects in outputs
Quality assurance is proactive and process-focused (preventing defects), while quality control is reactive and product-focused (detecting defects).
A retirement advisory firm wants to prioritize which process improvements will have the greatest impact on client satisfaction. Which tool helps rank improvement initiatives by effort and impact?
Answer: Prioritization matrix
A prioritization matrix evaluates and ranks potential improvements against criteria such as impact and effort to guide resource allocation.