Module 8 : Ensuring Quality

ABOUT

In Ensuring Quality, students face a series of challenges that show how business and industry use statistics and data analysis to improve the quality of products and services. The goal is for students to be able to apply statistical analysis in several business contexts in order to measure, analyze, and control quality. To do this, they take on the roles of members of various departments in Xavier Automotive Company (XAC) and use statistics to make business decisions that members of these departments would make. Students learn how companies measure and control for quality and about the role of data analysis in ensuring quality. In addition, students learn how data are used to make long-term business decisions.

In this module, students learn statistics concepts relevant to analyzing data and then apply these concepts to a final company scenario, in which they create a status report for one XAC division. Students also become familiar with a variety of ways to present statistical information visually. Using a statistics software package (such as Minitab® Statistical Software,1) a statistical analysis software package, a spreadsheet application (such as Microsoft Excel®), or graphing calculators, students analyze consumer information to inform design and marketing decisions, make personnel decisions based on data about employees’ previous performance, and monitor production for the presence of defects.