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Essentials of MIS, 12e (Laudon)
Chapter 9 Achieving Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy:
Enterprise Applications
1) From your reading of the chapter’s opening case, ACH Food Companies implemented new
information systems in order to achieve which of the following objectives?
A) Customer and supplier intimacy
B) Operational excellence
C) Survival
D) Improved decision making
E) New products and services
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
2) Which of the following provides a suite of integrated software modules for finance and
accounting, human resources, manufacturing and production, and sales and marketing that allows
data to be used by multiple functions and business processes?
A) Process management software
B) ERP systems
C) Groupware
D) Application software
E) CRM software
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
3) Enterprise software is built around thousands of predefined business processes that reflect:
A) the firm’s organization.
B) industry benchmarks.
C) best practices.
D) cutting edge workflow analyses.
E) government regulations.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
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4) Which of the following is not true about enterprise systems?
A) Enterprise systems help firms respond rapidly to customer requests for information or
products.
B) Enterprise system data have standardized definitions and formats that are accepted by the
entire organization.
C) Enterprise software is expressly built to allow companies to mimic their unique business
practices.
D) Enterprise software includes analytical tools to evaluate overall organizational performance.
E) Extensive customization of enterprise software may degrade system performance.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
5) You have been asked to implement enterprise software for a manufacturer of kitchen
appliances. What is the first step you should take?
A) Select the functions of the system you wish to use.
B) Select the business processes you wish to automate.
C) Map the company’s business processes to the software’s business processes.
D) Map the software’s business processes to the company’s business processes.
E) Rewrite the software to support the way the company’s business processes work.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
6) Which of the following enables a company to tailor a particular aspect of enterprise software
to the way a company does business?
A) Groupware
B) Web services
C) Data dictionaries
D) Middleware
E) Configuration tables
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
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7) In order to achieve maximum benefit from an enterprise software package, a business should:
A) customize the software to match all of its business processes.
B) use only the processes in the software that match its own processes.
C) change the way it works to match the software’s business processes.
D) select only the software that best matches its existing business processes.
E) choose a cloud-based ERP package.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
8) Manufacturing and production processes include all of the following except:
A) procurement.
B) materials requirement planning.
C) quality control.
D) transportation execution.
E) product configuration.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
9) Implementing enterprise software from Oracle enabled Alcoa to achieve all of the following
except:
A) reduce requisition-to-pay cycle times.
B) reduce accounts payable transaction processing.
C) centralize financial activities.
D) centralize procurement activities.
E) obtain lower prices for raw materials.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
10) Enterprise systems include analytical tools.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
11) An enterprise system can help reduce redundant business processes.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
4
12) Identify and describe three major enterprise applications.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking; Written and Oral Communication
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
5
13) You have been hired by Santori, Inc., a small company that imports and distributes an Italian
sparkling water. The company is interested in what benefits an enterprise system would bring.
Would an enterprise application be appropriate for this company? What steps would you take in
determining this?
AACSB: Analytical Thinking; Written and Oral Communication
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
14) What business processes are supported by enterprise systems? Give specific examples.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge; Written and Oral Communication
LO: 9.1: How do enterprise systems help businesses achieve operational excellence?
6
15) A network of organizations and business processes for procuring raw materials, transforming
these materials into intermediate and finished products, and distributing the finished products to
customers is called a(n):
A) distribution channel.
B) supply chain.
C) value chain.
D) marketing channel.
E) enterprise system.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
16) Components or parts of finished products are referred to as:
A) upstream materials.
B) raw materials.
C) secondary products.
D) downstream materials.
E) intermediate products.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
17) Which of the following refers to a company‘s suppliers, supplier’s suppliers, and the
processes for managing relationships with them?
A) Supplier’s internal supply chain
B) External supply chain
C) Upstream portion of the supply chain
D) Downstream portion of the supply chain
E) Value web
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
7
18) Which of the following refers to a company‘s organizations and processes for distributing
and delivering products to its final customers?
A) Supplier’s internal supply chain
B) External supply chain
C) Upstream portion of the supply chain
D) Downstream portion of the supply chain
E) Value web
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
19) Why isn’t overstocking warehouses an effective solution for a problem of low availability?
A) It does not speed product time to market.
B) It is an inefficient use of raw materials.
C) It increases sales costs.
D) It increases production costs.
E) It increases inventory costs.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
20) Which of the following traditional solutions enables manufacturers to deal with uncertainties
in the supply chain?
A) Safety stock
B) Continuous replenishment
C) Just-in-time strategies
D) Demand planning
E) Bullwhip effect
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
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21) A scheduling system for minimizing inventory by having components arrive exactly at the
moment they are needed and finished goods shipped as soon as they leave the assembly line best
describes a ________ strategy.
A) just-in–time
B) frictionless
C) bullwhip
D) safety-stock
E) push-pull
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
22) A distortion of information about the demand for a product as it passes from one entity to the
next across the supply chain is called the ________ effect.
A) network
B) bullwhip
C) ripple
D) whirlpool
E) just-in–time
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
23) Supply chain software can be classified as either supply chain ________ systems or supply
chain ________ systems.
A) push; pull
B) demand; continual
C) upstream; downstream
D) planning; execution
E) external; internal
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
9
24) Which of the following enables a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product, and to
develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product?
A) Supply chain demand system
B) Supply chain delivery system
C) Supply chain planning system
D) Supply chain execution system
E) Internal supply chain system
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
25) Supply chain planning systems:
A) track the physical status of goods.
B) identify the transportation mode to use for product delivery.
C) track the financial information involving all parties.
D) track the status of orders.
E) track the management of materials.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
26) Which supply chain planning function determines how much product is needed to satisfy all
customer demands?
A) Distribution management
B) Replenishment planning
C) Demand planning
D) Order planning
E) Just-in-time planning
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
10
27) Which of the following manages the flow of products through distribution centers and
warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient
manner?
A) Supply chain demand system
B) Supply chain delivery system
C) Supply chain planning system
D) Supply chain execution system
E) Internal supply chain system
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
28) Supply chain execution systems provide all of the following functions except:
A) generating demand forecasts for products.
B) tracking the flow of finished goods.
C) managing materials.
D) managing warehouse operations.
E) tracking financial information.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?
29) From your reading of the Scott’s Miracle-Gro case study, the company implemented SAP
and JDA enterprise and supply chain planning systems to solve which of the following
problems?
A) Lack of brand recognition
B) Lack of coordination among production facilities
C) Poor supply chain visibility for management
D) Shoddy record-keeping
E) Coordination issues caused by the merger of Scott’s and Miracle-Gro
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 9.2: How do supply chain management systems coordinate planning, production, and
logistics with suppliers?