To achieve the professional designation of ASQ Certified Quality Engineer from the ASQ, candidates must clear the CQE Exam with the minimum cut-off score. For those who wish to pass the ASQ Quality Engineer certification exam with good percentage, please take a look at the following reference document detailing what should be included in ASQ Quality Engineer Exam preparation.
The ASQ CQE Exam Summary, Body of Knowledge (BOK), Sample Question Bank and Practice Exam provide the basis for the real ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) exam. We have designed these resources to help you get ready to take ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) exam. If you have made the decision to become a certified professional, we suggest you take authorized training and prepare with our online premium ASQ Quality Engineer Practice Exam to achieve the best result.
ASQ CQE Exam Summary:
Exam Name | ASQ Certified Quality Engineer |
Exam Code | CQE |
Exam Fee |
USD ASQ MEMBERS - $398 NON-MEMBERS - $498 RETAKES - $298 |
Exam Duration | 330 Minutes |
Number of Questions | 175 |
Passing Score | 550/750 |
Format | Multiple Choice Questions |
Books / Trainings |
Certified Quality Engineer Certification Preparation The Certified Quality Engineer Handbook, Third Edition |
Schedule Exam | Book Your Exam |
Sample Questions | ASQ Quality Engineer Exam Sample Questions and Answers |
Practice Exam | ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) Practice Test |
ASQ Quality Engineer Syllabus Topics:
I. Management and Leadership (18 Questions) |
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A. Quality Philosophies and Foundations | - Describe continuous improvement tools, including lean, Six Sigma, theory of constraints, statistical process control (SPC), and total quality management, and understand how modern quality has evolved from quality control through statistical process control (SPC) to total quality management and leadership principles (including Deming’s 14 points). (Understand) |
B. The Quality Management System (QMS) |
1. Strategic planning 2. Deployment techniques 3. Quality information system (QIS) |
C. ASQ Code of Ethics for Professional Conduct | - Determine appropriate behavior in situations requiring ethical decisions. (Evaluate) |
D. Leadership Principles and Techniques | - Analyze various principles and techniques for developing and organizing teams and leading quality initiatives. (Analyze) |
E. Facilitation Principles and Techniques |
1. Roles and responsibilities 2. Facilitation tools |
F. Communication Skills | - Identify specific communication methods that are used for delivering information and messages in a variety of situations across all levels of the organization. (Analyze) |
G. Customer Relations | - Define, apply, and analyze the results of customer relation tools such as quality function deployment (QFD) and customer satisfaction surveys. (Analyze) |
H. Supplier Management |
1. Techniques 2. Improvement 3. Risk |
I. Barriers to Quality Improvement | - Identify barriers to quality improvement, analyze their causes and impact, and implement methods for improvement. (Analyze) |
II. The Quality System (16 Questions) |
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A. Elements of the Quality System |
1. Basic elements 2. Design |
B. Documentation of the Quality System |
1. Document components 2. Document control |
C. Quality Standards and Other Guidelines | - Apply national and international standards and other requirements and guidelines, including the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), and describe key points of the ISO 9000 series of standards. (Note: Industry-specific standards will not be tested.) (Apply) |
D. Quality Audits |
1. Types of audits 2. Roles and responsibilities in audits 3. Audit planning and implementation 4. Audit reporting and follow-up |
E. Cost of Quality (COQ) | - Identify and apply COQ concepts, including cost categorization, data collection, reporting, and interpreting results. (Analyze) |
F. Quality Training | - Identify and apply key elements of a training program, including conducting a needs analysis, developing curricula and materials, and determining the program’s effectiveness. (Apply) |
III. Product, Process, and Service Design (23 Questions) |
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A. Classification of Quality Characteristics | - Define, interpret, and classify quality characteristics for new and existing products, processes, and services. (Note: The classification of defects is covered in IV.B.3.) (Evaluate) |
B. Design Inputs and Review |
1. Inputs 2. Review |
C. Technical Drawings and Specifications | - Interpret specification requirements in relation to product and process characteristics and technical drawings, including characteristics such as views, title blocks, dimensioning and tolerancing, and GD&T symbols. (Evaluate) |
D. Verification and Validation | - Interpret the results of evaluations and tests used to verify and validate the design of products, processes and services, such as installation qualification (IQ), operational qualification (OQ), and process qualification (PQ). (Evaluate) |
E. Reliability and Maintainability |
1. Predictive and preventive maintenance tools 2. Reliability and maintainability indices 3. Reliability models 4. Reliability/Safety/Hazard Assessment Tools |
IV. Product and Process Control (25 Questions) |
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A. Methods | - Implement product and process control methods such as control plan development, critical control point identification, and work instruction development and validation. (Analyze) |
B. Material Control |
1. Material identification, status, and traceability 2. Material segregation 3. Material classification 4. Material review board |
C. Acceptance Sampling |
1. Sampling concepts 2. Sampling standards and plans 3. Sample integrity |
D. Measurement and Test |
1. Measurement tools 2. Destructive and nondestructive tests |
E. Metrology | - Apply metrology techniques such as calibration, traceability to calibration standards, measurement error and its sources, and control and maintenance of measurement standards and devices. (Analyze) |
F. Measurement System Analysis (MSA) | - Calculate, analyze, and interpret repeatability and reproducibility (gage R&R) studies, measurement correlation, capability, bias, linearity, precision, stability and accuracy, as well as related MSA quantitative and graphical methods. (Evaluate) |
V. Continuous Improvement (27 Questions) |
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A. Quality Control Tools |
- Select, construct, apply, and interpret the following quality control tools: 1. Flowcharts 2. Pareto charts 3. Cause and effect diagrams 4. Control charts 5. Check sheets 6. Scatter diagrams 7. Histograms (Analyze) |
B. Quality Management and Planning Tools |
- Select, construct, apply, and interpret the following quality management and planning tools: 1. Affinity diagrams and force field analysis 2. Tree diagrams 3. Process decision program charts (PDPC) 4. Matrix diagrams 5. Interrelationship digraphs 6. Prioritization matrices 7. Activity network diagrams (Analyze) |
C. Continuous Improvement Methodologies |
- Define, describe, and apply the following continuous improvement methodologies: 1. Total quality management (TQM) 2. Kaizen 3. Plan-do-check-act (PDCA) 4. Six Sigma 5. Theory of constraints (ToC) (Evaluate) |
D. Lean tools |
- Define, describe, and apply the following lean tools: 1. 5S 2. Value stream mapping 3. Kanban 4. Visual control 5. Waste (Muda) 6. Standardized work 7. Takt time 8. Single minute exchange of die (SMED) (Evaluate) |
E. Corrective Action | - Identify, describe, and apply elements of the corrective action process, including problem identification, failure analysis, root cause analysis, problem correction, recurrence control, and verification of effectiveness. (Evaluate) |
F. Preventive Action | - Identify, describe, and apply various preventive action tools such as error proofing/poka-yoke and robust design and analyze their effectiveness. (Evaluate) |
VI. Quantitative Methods and Tools (36 Questions) |
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A. Collecting and Summarizing Data |
1. Types of data 2. Measurement scales 3. Data collection methods 4. Data accuracy and integrity 5. Descriptive statistics 6. Graphical methods for depicting relationships 7. Graphical methods for depicting distributions |
B. Quantitative Concepts |
1. Terminology 2. Drawing statistical conclusions 3. Probability terms and concepts |
C. Probability Distributions |
1. Continuous distributions 2. Discrete distributions |
D. Statistical Decision Making |
1. Point estimates and confidence intervals 2. Hypothesis testing 3. Paired-comparison tests 4. Goodness-of-fit tests 5. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) 6. Contingency tables |
E. Relationships Between Variables |
1. Linear regression 2. Simple linear correlation 3. Time-series analysis |
F. Statistical Process Control (SPC) |
1. Objectives and benefits 2. Common and special causes 3. Selection of variable 4. Rational subgrouping 5. Control charts 6. Control chart analysis 7. Pre-control charts 8. Short-run SPC |
G. Process and Performance Capability |
1. Process capability studies 2. Process performance vs. specifications 3. Process capability indices 4. Process performance indices |
H. Design and Analysis of Experiments |
1. Terminology 2. Planning and organizing experiments 3. Design principles 4. One-factor experiments 5. Full-factorial experiments 6. Two-level fractional factorial experiments |
VII. Risk Management (15 Questions) |
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A. Risk Oversight |
1. Planning and oversight 2. Metrics 3. Mitigation planning |
B. Risk Assessment | - Apply categorization methods and evaluation tools to assess risk. (Analyze) |
C. Risk Control |
1. Identification and documentation 2. Auditing and testing |
Both ASQ and veterans who’ve earned multiple certifications maintain that the best preparation for a ASQ CQE professional certification exam is practical experience, hands-on training and practice exam. This is the most effective way to gain in-depth understanding of ASQ Quality Engineer concepts. When you understand techniques, it helps you retain ASQ Quality Engineer knowledge and recall that when needed.