Correct Answer: C
Quality management involves several key processes that contribute to achieving and maintaining high-quality products and services. Let's break down the options:
* Quality Control: This process focuses on monitoring and verifying that products or services meet specified requirements. It includes activities such as inspections, testing, and statistical process control.
Quality control ensures that defects are identified and corrected before products reach customers.
* Planning: Effective quality management begins with proper planning. This process involves defining quality objectives, creating quality plans, and allocating resources. Planning ensures that quality goals are aligned with organizational objectives and that the necessary steps are taken to achieve them.
* Improvement: Continuous improvement is essential for maintaining and enhancing quality. This process includes activities such as root cause analysis, corrective action, and preventive action. Organizations strive to identify areas for improvement, address underlying issues, and prevent recurrence of problems.
While the other options (process capability, rework costs, and audits) are relevant aspects of quality management, they are not the primary key processes. Process capability and rework costs relate to performance and cost, respectively, but they are not standalone processes. Audits (internal, external, and product) are important for assessing compliance and identifying opportunities for improvement, but they are specific activities within the broader quality management framework.
Therefore, the key processes in managing quality are quality control, planning, and improvement1.
References:
* The ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, Fifth Edition. Sandra L.
Furterer And Douglas C. Wood. Hardcover, 720 pages, Published 2021. ASQ Certified Manager Of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook2.
* ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Body of Knowledge (BoK). ASQ CMQ/OE BoK3.
* ASQ Certification: Manager of Quality/Organizational ExcellenceASQ Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Certification1.