A transportation problem requires exactly as many origins as destinations.
A firm that successfully pursues a steeper-than-industry-average learning curve and
manages costs down may still fail if, by underestimating a strong competitor, it fails to
gain the added volume necessary for the learning curve to exist.
Benchmark firms have driven down costs of supply-chain performance.
The learning curve coefficient approach may be simpler to use than the logarithmic
approach, but it requires the presence of a table of learning coefficients.
In process-focused facilities, equipment utilization is low.
Job expansion can lead to increased labor cost because of the extra workers hired in the
expansion.
The aggregate planning process usually includes expediting and dispatching of
individual products.
A ntive forecast for September sales of a product would be equal to the forecast for
August.
Linear programming is an appropriate problem-solving technique for decisions that
have no alternative courses of action.
The region that satisfies the constraint 4X + 15Z >= 1000 includes the origin of the
graph.
The work cell improves process layouts by reducing floor space and by reducing direct
labor cost.
An advantage of predetermined time standards is that the standard can be set before a
task is actually performed.
Which of the following is not a typical inspection point?
A) upon receipt of goods from your supplier
B) when production or service is complete
C) before the product is shipped to the customer
D) at the supplier’s plant while the supplier is producing
E) after a costly process
At your first job out of college you have been assigned to the production of bottled 20
oz. soda.
The process has upper and lower limits of 20.5 and 19.5 oz, respectively, with a mean
of 19.8 oz and standard deviation of .3 oz. Your manager has requested the process
produce no more than 3.4 defects per 1 million bottles produced. Calculate Cpk and then
determine if the process is capable or if you should be looking for assignable variation.
Among the ethical and social challenges facing operations managers are
A) honoring stakeholder commitments
B) maintaining a sustainable environment
C) efficiently developing and producing safe, quality products
D) providing a safe workplace
E) all of the above
The analysis tool that helps determine what products to develop, and by what strategy,
by listing products in descending order of their individual dollar contribution to the firm
is
A) decision tree analysis
B) Pareto analysis
C) breakeven analysis
D) product-by-value analysis
E) product life cycle analysis
Productivity tends to be more difficult to improve in the service sector because the work
is
A) often difficult to automate
B) typically labor-intensive
C) frequently processed individually
D) often an intellectual task performed by professionals
E) All of the above make service productivity more difficult.
Which of the following is not true regarding core competencies?
A) They may include specialized knowledge.
B) They may represent a small portion of an organization’s business activities.
C) They may include proprietary technology or information.
D) They may be good candidates for outsourcing.
E) They may include unique production methods.
A business’s stakeholders, whose conflicting perspectives cause ethical and social
dilemmas, include
A) lenders
B) suppliers
C) owners
D) employees
E) all of the above
A manager is trying to estimate the appropriate learning curve for a certain job. The
manager notes that the first four units had a total time of 30 minutes. Which learning
curve would yield approximately this result if the first unit took 9 minutes? (Use Table
E.3 cumulative coefficient)
A) 0.70
B) 0.75
C) 0.80
D) 0.85
E) 0.90
A characteristic of JIT partnerships with respect to quality is to
A) help suppliers meet quality requirement
B) inspect all incoming parts
C) maintain a steady output rate
D) impose maximum product specifications on the supplier
E) draw up strict contracts ensuring that all defectives will be immediately replaced
A product has annual demand of 100,000 units. The plant manager wants production to
follow a four-hour cycle. Based on the following data, what setup cost will enable the
desired production cycle? d=400 per day (250 days per year), p=4000 units per day,
H=$40 per unit per year, and Q=200 (demand for four hours, half a day).
A) $2.00
B) $7.20
C) $18.00
D) $64.00
E) $1,036.80
A firm uses the pure chase strategy of aggregate planning. It produced 1000 units in the
last period. Demand in the next period is estimated at 800, and demand over the next
six periods (its aggregate planning horizon) is estimated to average 900 units. In
following the chase strategy, the firm will
A) add 100 units to inventory in the next period
B) add 200 units to inventory in the next period
C) hire workers to match the 100 unit difference
D) lay off workers to match the 200 unit difference
E) implement a lower price point to increase demand
Which of the following is an illustration of employee empowerment?
A) UPS drivers are trained to perform several motions smoothly and efficiently.
B) Unionization of the work place brings better morale and therefore better quality.
C) “No one knows the job better than those who do it.”
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Community attitudes, zoning restrictions, and quality of labor force are likely to be
considered in which of the following location decision methods?
A) transportation method
B) locational break-even analysis
C) center-of-gravity method
D) simulation
E) factor-rating method
Which of the following statements comparing the weighted moving average technique
and exponential smoothing is true?
A) Exponential smoothing is more easily used in combination with the Delphi method.
B) More emphasis can be placed on recent values using the weighted moving average.
C) Exponential smoothing is considerably more difficult to implement on a computer.
D) Exponential smoothing typically requires less record keeping of past data.
E) Exponential smoothing allows one to develop forecasts for multiple periods, whereas
weighted moving averages does not.
The process that involves repair on an emergency or priority basis is known as
A) breakdown maintenance
B) emergency maintenance
C) failure maintenance
D) preventive maintenance
E) priority maintenance
Which of the following workers is the most productive?
A) $50 wages, 10 parts produced
B) $10 wages, 1 part produced
C) $30 wages, 5 parts produced
D) $100 wages, 21 parts produced
E) $500 wages, 100 parts produced
Autonomous maintenance occurs when
A) employees are empowered to observe, check, adjust, clean, and notify
B) a remote computer system signals the need for breakdown maintenance
C) a remote computer system signals the need for preventative maintenance
D) employees perform their own breakdown maintenance
E) none of the above
Factory X is trying to use level use scheduling. If their first target were to cut the
current lot size in half, by what proportion must setup cost change?
A) Setup cost must be cut to one fourth its current value.
B) Setup cost must also be cut in half from its current value.
C) Setup cost must double from its current value.
D) cannot be determined
E) none of the above
A highway contractor needs to locate a single supply point to provide road building
materials to four projects. The four projects, which are all approximately the same
magnitude, are located at the following coordinates. Coordinate units are in miles.
a. On the grid below, plot the locations of the four road-building sites. Properly label all
points.
b. What is the center of gravity?
c. If a single truck were sent from center-of-gravity to each project and back (four round
trips), how many miles would be traveled? (Hint: use the Pythagorean Theorem C =
).
d. Add the calculated center of gravity to the grid.
The Japanese concept of a company coalition of suppliers is
A) poka-yoke
B) kaizen
C) keiretsu
D) dim sum
E) illegal
What are predetermined time standards?
What four elements determine the value of average outgoing quality? Why does this
curve rise, peak, and fall?
What is transportation modeling?
Suppose that a car mechanic offers you a deal that for the next 3 years any breakdowns
will be covered, so long as you bring your car in for $50 preventative maintenance
sessions each month. If you predict the likelihood of a breakdown being 25% without
the maintenance, how much must a breakdown cost for you to prefer the preventative
maintenance?
What are the differences between quantitative and qualitative forecasting methods?