Introduction to Operations and Supply Chain Management, 4e (Bozarth/Handfield)
Chapter 4 Business Processes
Learning Objective 4-1
1) A support process performs necessary, value-added activities of an organization.
2) The majority of the total operating budget for most organizations is:
A) engineering costs.
B) advertising costs.
C) supply chain costs.
D) equipment maintenance costs.
3) A set of logically related tasks or activities performed to achieve a defined business outcome
is a:
A) process.
B) primary process.
C) support process.
D) development process.
4) A set of tasks or activities that addresses the main value-added activities of an organization is
a:
A) process.
B) primary process.
C) support process.
D) development process.
5) Which of the following statements best describes current thinking regarding processes?
A) If companies concentrate on how functional areas like marketing, finance, and operations are
organized, then everything will be fine.
B) Managing functional areas like marketing, finance, and operations is essentially the same
thing as managing what a business does.
C) If the individual functional strategies of marketing, finance, and accounting are aligned with
the overall business strategy, then everything will be fine.
D) Developing superior business processes requires a cross-functional and cross-organizational
perspective.
6) A ________ process performs the main, value-added activities of an organization.
7) A process that seeks to improve the performance of main value-added and necessary, non-
value-added activities is a(n) ________ process.
8) Describe the three types of processes and the relationships between them.
Learning Objective 4-2
1) Mapping creates a common understanding of process activities, their results, and who
performs the steps.
2) The primary focus of a swim lane process map is to depict flows of objects, information, and
money.
3) In a process map, a circle represents a step or activity in the process.
4) Mapping does NOT:
A) create a common understanding of the content of a process.
B) define the boundaries of a process.
C) provide a detailed view of all elements external to the process.
D) provide a baseline against which to measure the impact of improvement efforts.
5) An arrow in a process map represents a:
A) move activity.
B) start or finish point.
C) delay.
D) creation of a document.
6) Peter prints out a cover for the TPS report he just completed. This activity would be
represented on a process map with which symbol?
A)
B)
C)
D)
7) Every customer that exited the store was subjected to close scrutiny of their shopping cart and
receipt by a highly trained inspector. This activity would be represented on a process map with
which symbol?
A)
B)
C)
D)
8) Many states have a mandatory 90-day waiting period from the time a divorce is filed to when
it can be finalized. This activity would be represented on a process map with which symbol?
A)
B)
C)
D)
9) After calculating the applicant’s credit score, the system required the applicant to provide a
health history. This activity would be represented on a process map with which symbol?
A)
B)
C)
D)
10) Which tool should be used to track the movement of a customer’s complaint from one
department to the next until it is resolved?
A) process map
B) swim lane map
C) entity map
D) data flow map
11) When an employee team develops a process map, they should document the process
________.
12) What is the general procedure for developing a swim lane process map?
Learning Objective 4-3
1) Productivity is measured as the ratio of inputs to outputs.
2) A laundry tracks clean linen output in pounds and their inputs of gas, water, electricity, and
labor. A productivity measure incorporating all of these inputs is a multifactor measure.
3) A person who fails to meet output standards could still have an efficiency measurement of
more than 100%.
4) Cycle time is the total time needed to complete a business process.
5) While efficiency can exceed 100%, percent value-added time has a maximum of 100%.
6) Your university sends a contingent of top-ranking officials to Las Vegas hotels to study ways
to improve dormitory living conditions. This is an example of process benchmarking.
7) When McDonald’s studies the drive-through operations of Burger King, they are engaging in
competitive benchmarking.
8) A Six Sigma Champion is a full-time Six Sigma expert that is responsible for training,
mentoring, deployment, and results.
9) A check sheet, also called an Ishikawa diagram, is used to record how frequently a certain
event occurs.
10) The Five Whys can be used during all three phases of construction of a Pareto chart.
11) The magnitude of changes created by a continuous improvement program is generally larger
than those created by a business process reengineering program.
12) A car wash services 200 customers in a 4-hour span on a lovely Saturday afternoon. The car
wash employs 5 washers at $6 per hour. An appropriate measure of productivity is:
A) 200 cars/hour.
B) 0.6 $/car.
C) 8.3 cars/$.
D) 1.7 cars/$.
13) A car wash services 200 customers in an hour on a lovely Saturday afternoon. The car wash
employs 5 washers at $6 per hour and uses $50 of water and $5 of electricity per hour. An
appropriate measure of productivity is:
A) 80%.
B) 2.35 cars/$.
C) 8 cars/$.
D) 0.425 $/car.
14) A car wash services 200 customers in an hour on a lovely Saturday afternoon. The car wash
employs 5 washers at $6 per hour and uses $50 of water and $5 of electricity per hour. They
charge $10 per car for their standard wash job. Which of these changes would have the greatest
positive impact on their productivity?
A) increasing their service rate so they can process 210 cars per hour
B) cutting their employee pay by $1 per hour
C) charging $11 per standard wash job
D) introducing a new waterless system
15) A car wash services 200 customers an hour on a lovely Saturday afternoon. The car wash
employs 5 washers at $6 per hour and uses $50 of water and $5 of electricity per hour. They
charge $10 per car for their standard wash job. Which of these changes would have the greatest
positive impact on their productivity?
A) increasing their service rate by 10%
B) decreasing wages by 5%
C) increasing their per-car fee by 20%
D) decreasing water usage by 10%
16) A professor is expected to cover 16 chapters in an operations management text each
semester. One semester the professor dismisses class 30 minutes early every Monday and Friday
and is able to cover only 12 chapters. What is the professor’s efficiency?
A) 75%
B) 4
C) 133%
D) -4
17) A professor is expected to cover 16 chapters in an operations management text each
semester. The class is scheduled to meet for one hour three times a week for 15 weeks. One
semester the professor dismisses class 30 minutes early every Monday and Friday and is able to
cover only 12 chapters using two boxes of chalk and case of bourbon. What is the professor’s
labor productivity?
A) 0.27 chapters per hour
B) 1.25 chapters per week
C) 1.06 chapters per week
D) 0.4 chapters per hour
18) A maintenance worker maintains an alibi sheet of all work activities performed in an 8 hour
shift. If the work standard is such that 90% efficiency is expected, what is the actual amount of
time that should be documented?
A) 8.9 hours
B) 111%
C) 7.2 hours
D) 0.8 hours
19) It takes one day for Peter Gibbons to complete a TPS report and attach the cover sheet.
During that day, Peter spends about 15 minutes a day performing actual work and the other 7
hours and 45 minutes spacing out. Which of the following statements is correct?
A) Peter’s cycle time is 7 hours and 30 minutes.
B) Peter’s efficiency is 25%.
C) Peter’s productivity is 8 hours per TPS report.
D) Peter’s percent value-added time is just over 3%.
20) Consider a typical cycle of emailing a professor a question about class and waiting for a
response. Which of the following statements is correct?
A) The percent value-added time is low.
B) The cycle time is impossible to determine with any accuracy.
C) The quality of the response is easy to measure.
D) The professor’s productivity is easy to measure.
21) Which of the following approaches to process improvement could be described as process
benchmarking?
A) Employees at McDonald’s ignore the way they have always processed customer orders and
design an entirely new way to do so.
B) Employees at the campus housing and dining service visit Ritz Carlton to pick up ideas on
managing long-term guests.
C) Employees at Ford purchase automobiles from an array of car manufacturers and take them
apart to get design ideas for their next generation Taurus.
D) Employees at XEROX take classes in quality improvement and make small, incremental
changes to their order filling processes.
22) Which of the following approaches to process improvement could be described as
competitive benchmarking?
A) Employees at XEROX ignore the way they have always processed customer orders and
design an entirely new way to do so.
B) Employees at XEROX visit GM to pick up ideas on processing customer orders.
C) Employees at XEROX purchase a Canon copier and take it apart to get design ideas for their
next generation of copiers.
D) Employees at XEROX take classes in quality improvement and make small, incremental
changes to their order filling processes.
23) In statistical terms, a process that achieves Six Sigma quality will generate about:
A) zero defects per million opportunities.
B) six defects per million opportunities.
C) three defects per million opportunities.
D) thirty-four defects per million opportunities.