IE 380 – Quality Control and Improvement

Homework Assignment 1 – Due March 6

1. (20 points) What is the difference between special cause and common cause variation?
Give an example of each from a service like teaching a class. Explain why it is important
to separate sources of variability into special causes and common causes.

2. (20 points) Choose an online video conference tool (e.g., Zoom, Skype, Google Meet) and
discuss how they could adopt a quality improvement program. Specifically, discuss what
their customers want, what the company might measure, and how they could use these
measurements.

3. (20 points) Of the quality pioneers we discussed (Deming, Juran, Crosby, and Garvin)
whose ideas do you think are most applicable to a spacecraft manufacturer (e.g., SpaceX)?
Briefly explain why. List at least three specific ideas of the quality pioneer that you choose
to support your answer.

4. (40 points) A new drug was administered to a group of 30 randomly selected patients while
another group of 30 was given a placebo. After six months, the data on the next page
was obtained on their systolic blood pressure, blood glucose level, and total cholesterol
level. The distributions are independent and normal across two patient groups and three
characteristics.

(a) Can we conclude that the mean systolic blood pressure for the control group is less
than 135? Use α = 0.025.
(b) Can we conclude that the variance of systolic blood pressure for the treated group is
less than 80? Use α = 0.1.
(c) Can we conclude that the drug was effective in reducing the mean cholesterol level?
Use α = 0.01 and assume the variances are equal. What is the p-value?
(d) For the hypothesis test you conducted in part (c), find the type 2 error probability
for a true decrease of 6 in the mean cholesterol level.
(e) Construct a 90% confidence interval on the ratio of the variances of blood glucose
level for the control and treated groups. Just by looking at this confidence interval,
can we conclude that the variances are different? Why or why not?

1
 Control Group Treated Group
Patient Blood Blood Total Blood Blood Total
Number Pressure Glucose Cholesterol Pressure Glucose Cholesterol
1 145 184 240 136 181 234
2 164 144 237 142 150 244
3 130 121 204 127 121 217
4 117 123 220 116 128 229
5 132 119 217 123 132 213
6 130 115 205 132 109 182
7 109 106 195 114 103 194
8 127 120 217 121 108 203
9 139 116 228 124 105 214
10 141 132 232 128 134 223
11 153 153 257 140 149 231
12 125 122 233 125 122 223
13 115 116 213 114 114 213
14 136 131 239 121 128 228
15 148 218 256 143 180 250
16 131 133 234 124 130 224
17 128 118 218 124 109 233
18 119 107 233 112 104 238
19 112 119 194 111 107 206
20 146 123 224 129 116 219
21 153 203 258 132 195 244
22 146 183 250 134 174 240
23 127 140 231 119 133 206
24 138 179 239 123 170 232
25 130 136 216 120 134 202
26 132 123 220 120 131 217
27 139 131 229 128 130 225
28 152 220 256 143 180 250
29 147 122 225 130 114 219
30 132 134 221 122 136 206