Q1: Tell me yourself?

ANS: I'm Shobith. Thank you for offering me this job interview with your
company today as a QC engineer. I am a mechanical engineer with 2 years
of experience as a quality control inspector at Nexteer Automotive Pvt Ltd
in India. I possess a wide range of skills and qualities makes me to excel in
this quality control job position, including confidence in my abilities,
excellent technical skills, knowledge of the quality control process and how
it fits into a variety of different scenarios, good leadership, planning, and
organization skills, and also the ability to work effectively as part of a team
while developing strong working relationships with my colleagues. My
work is always to the highest standards and I make sure that the work I do
is in line with the commercial goals and objectives of your organization.

Q2: What is your role in your previous company?

ANS: Nexteer Automotive is a famous manufacturing company which
produce Electric & Hydraulic steering systems, steering columns &
driveline systems. My role in that company was as QC inspector in the half
shaft production zones. In my role, I perform daily inspection rounds
throughout facilities in order to make sure that all equipment and machinery
are functioning properly. Documentation such as start-up, check sheets,
process check sheets, defect check sheets & FTQ was maintained &
organized. Perform inspection of sample parts like visual inspection,
dimensions measuring & Non-destructive tests where appropriate.
Reporting repeated issues to supervisors and other departments, and
working together to identify and resolve issues. Conduct quality meetings
with the production team.
Q3: What Are The Qualities Needed To Be A Successful Quality Engineer?
ANS: To become an effective quality engineer, one should be equipped with
critical thinking because they need to perform analysis in finding out the
cause of problems followed by the ways to address the issue. Another
needed skill is to be able to work under pressure. This is because the quality
engineer has to stay organized and may be flooded with many tasks at the
same time.

Q4: How Do You Deal With Uncooperative Workers?

ANS: If I were in the same position as the worker, I would first talk nicely
to the person in question. It may help to figure out the circumstances that
were hindering them from doing their work well. If the behaviour persists,
I may need to ask for intervention from more senior colleagues or managers.

Q5: How Do You Describe Quality Engineering In The Simplest Words?

ANS: Quality engineering is one of the components of engineering which
is highly related to ensuring the products released are of high quality. For
every product or service offered, some standards ought to be achieved and
to determine whether the products are of high quality or not. Quality
engineering is involved in establishing the standards as well as ensuring the
goals are achieved.

Q6: What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Are Required For This Role?
Ans: My mindset in this role is to be alert at all times and must never take
this job lightly. That aside, when choosing software, for example, I would
always remind myself to look at the consumer or user’s perspective. It
should be noted that I may find the products good for me but they may not
be for the others. Hence, one of the strategies is to always look at a different
perspective.
Q7: How Will You Deal With People Who Do Not Abide By The Quality
Standards?
ANS: I will first investigate the root cause of the issue. There must be
something wrong with the person if that is the first underperforming record.
I will approach the person and remind them to keep on track with the
standards. If the issue persists, depending on my position, I may need to
have the person replaced.

Q8: What is the importance of a project quality plan?

ANS: The project quality plan is the backbone of the quality process. It is a
document or several documents, that together specify quality standards,
practice, resources, specifications & the sequence of activities relevant to a
particular product or service, project or contract. The project quality plan
guides quality engineers from start to finish.

Q9: What do you know about the American Society for Quality?
ANS: The American Society for Quality acts as a guiding member of the
quality community to ensure that the best practices and standards are met.
Their certifications help raise the standards of a company’s production
process. To remain competitive it is important to consider the ASQ when
designing project quality plans.

Q10: What do you know about the International Organization for

Standardization’s (ISO) 9000 series?
ANS: ISO 9000 is defined as a set of international standards on quality
management and quality assurance developed to help companies effectively
document the quality system elements needed to maintain an efficient
quality system. They are not specific to any one industry and can be applied
to organizations of any size.
Q11: What would you do if you learned production had to be stopped
immediately?
ANS: Stopping production is never easy. It affects people both inside and
outside the company. However, as a quality engineer, I have to ensure a
quality product is shipped. I would act if something endangered people or
if left alone would do more damage than if confronted immediately.

Q12: Describe A Time You Failed In This Role And The Lesson You
Learned.
ANS: I learned that rushing through a project isn’t helpful. In the long run,
it can end up costing more time and money. It’s important to give every
project my full attention and take my time. If I have the responsibility of
approving something, I can’t just assume that it’s already been done
correctly. Since then, I consciously remind myself to slow down. I’ve also
worked on being more organized so that I’m not doing too many things at
once. I make a daily checklist and prioritize my most important tasks for the
day.

Q13: Our company works with quality control audits on an industrial level.
Can you tell me what you know about these types of processes and your
experiences?
ANS: I have already worked extensively with the system, internal and
product audits. When I’ve performed internal audits for clients in the past,
I was directly involved in the analysis of the resources required for a
particular project and how to manage them.
 Q14: How would you describe the relationship between a quality control
inspector and a manufacturing plant manager?
ANS: In my previous role, I worked closely with the manufacturing
manager to learn about their production process and periodically check
production standards. Based on my experience, I believe that these two roles
work together to maintain and improve the manufacturing process by
encouraging accountability and offering different perspectives.

Q15: What is the difference b/w QA & QC?

ANS: Quality assurance (QA) are actions taken to design and manufacture
a safe and effective product by building quality controls into the product life
cycle. Quality control (QC) is a test procedure used to verify that a product
is safe and effective after manufacturing is done. Both QA and QC are
necessary. Effective quality assurance is proactive. It aims to prevent
defects before they occur through process design. QC is reactive and exists
to identify defects after they have happened. QA is process-oriented, and it
focuses on preventing quality issues. QC is product-oriented and focused
on identifying quality issues in manufactured products.

Q16: What do you mean by quality?

ANS: Quality is the extent to which products, services, processes and
relationships are free from defects, constraints and items which do not add
value for customers. Quality is meeting the requirements and expectations
in service or product that were committed to.
Q18: What is a PDCA cycle?
Ans: The PDCA/PDSA cycle is a continuous loop of planning, doing,
checking (or studying), and acting. It provides a simple and effective
approach for solving problems and managing change. The model is useful
for testing improvement measures on a small scale before updating
procedures and working practices.
The approach begins with a Planning phase in which problems are identified
and understood, and a theory for improvement is defined. Potential
solutions are tested on a small scale in the Do phase, and the outcome is
then studied and Checked.
Go through the Do and Check stages as many times as necessary before the
full, polished solution is implemented, in the Act phase of the cycle.

Q19: What are the 7 QC tools?

ANS: The Seven Basic Tools of Quality (also known as 7 QC Tools)
originated in Japan when the country was undergoing a major quality
revolution and had become a mandatory topic as part of Japanese’s
industrial training program. These tools which comprised of simple
graphical and statistical techniques helped solve critical quality-related
issues. These tools were often referred to as Seven Basics Tools of Quality
because these tools could be implemented by any person with very basic
training in statistics and were simple to apply to solve quality-related
complex issues.
7 QC tools are
• Stratification (Divide and Conquer)
• Histogram
• Check Sheet (Tally Sheet)
• Cause-and-effect diagram (“fishbone” or Ishikawa diagram)
• Pareto chart (80/20 Rule)
• Scatter diagram (Shewhart Chart)
• Control chart
Q20: What is kaizen?
ANS: “Kaizen” is the philosophy of continuous improvement. Lean
manufacturers use kaizen to help eliminate waste. Manufacturers
continuously improve standardized processes, equipment, and other daily
production procedures with kaizen. The main requirement is that existing
procedures be standardized and documented so that improvements can be
evaluated objectively.
Kaizen benefits to a manufacturer’s production include:
• Increased productivity
• Improved quality
• Better safety
• Lower costs
• Improved customer satisfaction
People can follow these basic steps for carrying out daily kaizen:

• Come up with an improvement idea or identify a problem.

• Discuss the situation with co-workers or a supervisor.
• Try out the idea, possibly using the PDCA cycle or scientific method.
• Make notes about whether the idea was successful; if it was,
take steps to make it the new standard for work.
• Share the success with the team, department, and organization.
Q21: What are the 8 wastes in lean manufacturing?
ANS:
• Defects: When a product is not fit for use it must be scrapped or
reworked, adding cost to the production process without adding value.
• Waiting time: Unevenness in the work environment can lead to people
waiting on material or equipment, or machines idling and can result in
overproduction or excess inventory.
• Extra motion: Unnecessary movement can place strain on personnel
and not add additional value to the customer.
• Excess inventory: Excess inventory can cause inefficiencies and cause
delays in the detection of problems. Problems can accumulate, and
with more inventory, problems take longer to solve.
• Overproduction: Producing too much before it is required obstructs a
smooth flow of work, raises the costs of production and storage, hides
defects inside work-in-progress, and increases lead time.
• Extra processing: Excess activity as a result of poor tool or product
design.
• Unnecessary transportation: Moving items that are not necessary for
the process.
• Unutilized talents: Under-utilizing skills or assigning tasks to
employees with insufficient training.
Q22: What is FMEA?
ANS: Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA; often written with "failure
modes" in plural) is the process of reviewing as many components,
assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes
in a system and their causes and effects. For each component, the failure
modes and their effects on the rest of the system are recorded in a specific
FMEA worksheet. There are numerous variations of such worksheets
The analysis should always be started by listing the functions that the design
needs to fulfil. Functions are the starting point of a well done FMEA, and
using functions as baseline provides the best yield of an FMEA. After all, a
design is only one possible solution to perform functions that need to be
fulfilled. This way an FMEA can be done on concept designs as well as
detail designs, on hardware as well as software, and no matter how complex
the design is.

Example of FMEA worksheet

• Probability (P)
• Severity (S)
• Detection (D)
• Dormancy or Latency Period
• Indication
• Risk level (P×S) and (D)
Q23: What is Process Protocol?
ANS: Process Protocols are special sets of master rules that make processes
work in suitable manners: effectively, safely, economically, etc. By
following process protocols, you can reach specific goals, such as
preventing process failures, errors and upsets. Process protocols are very
often used in industries and cases where the risk of human errors should be
minimized, for example in hospitals, so there could be protocols prescribing
specific frameworks for medical personnel to behave with patients in an
optimal manner, to diagnose their disorders promptly and with minimal
risks to fail, and hence to seek appropriate treatment. In other words, process
protocols are tools for securing effectiveness and stability of process results
without regard to who is the process performer in every specific case (so a
negative input from a performer can be minimized and neutralized through
task simplification and adherence to procedures).

Q24: What is 5S?

SORT- SEIRI
SET IN ORDER -SEITION
SHINE - SEISO
STANDARDIZE – SEIKETSU
SUSTAIN - SHITSUKE