APS 4020 Module 6 Total Quality Tools Example

Course	APS-4020 Applied Quality Management
Module	Module 6
Paper type	Written assignment: total quality tools and information in decision making
Length	About 457 words, 4 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Thomas Edison State University
Program	B.S.B.A. in Operations Management
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for APS 4020 Module 6

Let the Data Choose: Using Quality Tools to Decide What a Bakery Fixes First

Student Name

B.S.B.A. in Operations Management, Thomas Edison State University

APS-4020: Applied Quality Management

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title states the purpose of the tools, replacing opinion with evidence in setting priorities.

Let the Data Choose: Using Quality Tools to Decide What a Bakery Fixes First

The Disagreement

The owner believes most returns come from drivers arriving late. Drivers blame bakers for late loading. Bakers blame the mixer. Everyone has a story; no one has data.

Collecting Data: The Check Sheet

Goetsch and Davis (2020) describe the check sheet as a plain tally form that counts how often given events happen, the first step toward decisions grounded in facts. For four weeks, drivers and packers recorded every returned or refused order with its reason, using a sheet with seven categories. There were 312 returns or refusals among about 13,500 deliveries.

Analyzing Data: The Pareto Chart

A Pareto chart orders categories from most to least frequent, showing which few account for most of the problem, an idea Juran described as separating the vital few from the useful many (Juran & Godfrey, 1999).

Two reasons account for 71 percent of returns. The owner was right that lateness matters most, but underweight bags, which no one had mentioned, are nearly as important.

Reason	Count	Share	Cumulative share
Late delivery	121	39 percent	39 percent
Underweight bag	100	32 percent	71 percent
Wrong item or count	41	13 percent	84 percent
Burned or pale color	29	9 percent	93 percent
Damaged packaging	13	4 percent	97 percent
Other	8	3 percent	100 percent

What this page is doingThe Pareto chart corrected everyone's assumptions at once, which is why data had to come before discussion.

Finding Causes: The Cause-and-Effect Diagram

Ishikawa (1985) created the fishbone diagram so that a team could lay out every suspected cause by category and check them one at a time. With three bakers and two drivers, we built a diagram for late deliveries using the categories of people, methods, machines, materials, measurement and environment. The strongest candidate causes were methods, loading in the order products finish rather than by route, and machines, the mixer that overheats dough and delays the first bake. For underweight bags, the main candidate was measurement: the divider that portions dough drifts during the shift and is checked only at the start.

How Information Should Drive Decisions

The tools change the decision. Instead of disciplining drivers, the bakery will first change loading to route order, which costs nothing, and check the divider's portion weight every hour. The mixer repair is already planned. The check sheet will continue, so the next Pareto chart in two months will show whether the changes worked.

The same tools will be used again for the next problem, wrong items and counts, which ranked third.

Results will be shared with the whole night crew.

Bakers who joined the diagram meeting will help track the results.

Conclusion

Simple tools turned a blame-filled argument into a ranked list of problems with likely causes. The bakery's decisions now rest on data that everyone helped collect.

References

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2020). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9th ed.). Pearson.

Ishikawa, K. (1985). What is total quality control? The Japanese way (D. J. Lu, Trans.). Prentice Hall.

Juran, J. M., & Godfrey, A. B. (1999). Juran's quality handbook (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Reading the APS 4020 Module 6 assignment instructions

APS-4020's six written assignments carry 20 percent of the grade, and this page shows one for Module 6, which covers quality tools and the place of information in decisions. Use quality tools such as check sheets, Pareto charts, cause-and-effect diagrams, histograms or scatter diagrams to collect and analyze data about a real problem, and explain how the results should change decisions. Goetsch and Davis's chapter on total quality tools is the base. Present your counts in a table and bring the workers into the cause analysis, which is how the tools are meant to run. Plan to repeat the measurement after changes to see whether they worked.

How the APS 4020 Module 6 example is put together

The paper opens with a disagreement in which everyone blames someone else. A four-week check sheet records 312 returns in six categories. A Pareto table ranks them, showing that late delivery and underweight bags make up 71 percent and that one major cause had been overlooked; Juran's vital few idea frames the chart. A cause-and-effect diagram built with bakers and drivers, following Ishikawa, points to loading order, the mixer and an unchecked divider. A margin note explains why data came before discussion. The decisions that follow, and a repeat Pareto chart, close the paper. The tools will be reused on the third-ranked problem, wrong items and counts.

APS 4020 Module 6 rubric: what earns full marks

Grades for this assignment reward correct use of quality tools, real or realistic data, sound interpretation, a clear link from information to decisions and APA writing. Papers that collect data before analyzing causes, rank problems with a Pareto chart and involve workers in a cause-and-effect diagram show proper method. Showing how the data changed a decision demonstrates the module's point about information. Planning to repeat the measurement shows understanding of continual improvement. Clear tables make results easy to check. Mentors also credit plans to apply the same tools to the next problem in the ranking. Using each tool for its proper purpose, collecting, ranking and explaining, shows command of the toolkit.

APS 4020 Module 6 help: mistakes that cost marks

Students lose marks by drawing tools without data, by listing tools from the textbook without using them or by jumping from a Pareto chart to a solution without exploring causes. Others leave out how decisions change. Collect counts for a real problem, rank them, explore causes with the people involved and explain what you will do first and how you will check the result. Send a problem from your job and a free APS-4020 Module 6 draft can use your data. Keep collecting data after the fix so the next Pareto chart can show the change. Do not skip the cause analysis: a Pareto chart shows what to fix first but not why it happens.

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APS 4020 Module 6 questions, answered

Where can I find a free APS 4020 Module 6 sample paper?

The written assignment above uses a check sheet, a Pareto chart and a fishbone diagram to rank and explain bakery returns.

What is a Pareto chart?

A bar chart that orders problem categories from most to least frequent, showing the few that cause most of the problem.

What is a cause-and-effect diagram?

The fishbone chart Ishikawa devised, with branches for people, methods, machines, materials and more, on which a team hangs its guesses about causes.

What is a check sheet?

A tally form for counting how often chosen events happen, filled in before any analysis.

Why use data instead of opinion in quality decisions?

Data reveal which problems matter most and can correct assumptions that would otherwise drive the wrong fixes.

APS 4020 Module 6 Written Assignment: Check Sheets, a Pareto Chart and a Fishbone for Bakery Returns Example