Management Information Systems, 14e (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 business objectives?
A) customer and supplier intimacy
B) operational excellence
C) survival
D) improved decision making
E) new products and services
2) 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 best describes
A) process management software.
B) ERP systems.
C) groupware.
D) application software.
E) supply chain management systems.
3) Enterprise software is built around thousands of predefined business processes that reflect
A) the firm’s organization.
B) industry goals.
C) best practices.
D) cutting edge workflow analyses.
E) the firm’s culture.
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) Enterprise systems provide firmwide information to help managers make better decisions.
5) You have been asked to implement enterprise software for a manufacturer of kitchen
appliances. What is the first step you should take?
A) Rewrite the software to support the way the company’s business processes work.
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) Select the functions of the system you wish to use.
6) When tailoring a particular aspect of a system to the way a company does business, enterprise
software can provide the company with
A) configuration tables.
B) Web services.
C) data dictionaries.
D) middleware.
E) customized plug-ins.
7) In order to achieve maximum benefit from an enterprise software package, a business
A) customizes the software to match all of its business processes.
B) uses only the processes in the software that match its own processes.
C) changes the way it works to match the software’s business processes.
D) selects only the software that best matches its existing business processes.
E) retains legacy systems that best work with the software.
8) ________ systems are based on a suite of software models used to support business activities
across the firm.
A) Global
B) Organizational
C) Supply chain
D) Product differentiation
E) Enterprise
9) Enterprise systems include analytical tools.
10) An enterprise system helps reduce redundant business processes.
11) Identify and describe three major enterprise applications.
12) Identify at least four benefits and four challenges of enterprise systems.
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 system be appropriate for this company? What steps would you take in
determining this?
14) Supply chain complexity and scale increases when firms
A) move to globalization.
B) manage the procurement, manufacturing, and distribution functions themselves.
C) outsource more labor.
D) modify their existing workflows to comply with supply-chain management systems.
E) develop products and services that coordinate with many firms and suppliers.
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
A) distribution channel.
B) supply chain.
C) value chain.
D) marketing channel.
E) information system.
16) Components or parts of finished products are referred to as
A) upstream materials.
B) raw materials.
C) secondary products.
D) intermediate products.
E) mid-chain products.
17) A company’s suppliers, supplier’s suppliers, and the processes for managing relationships
with them is the
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) onstream portion of the supply chain.
18) A company’s organizations and processes for distributing and delivering products to the final
customers is the
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) onstream portion of the supply chain.
19) If manufacturers had perfect information, they could implement a
A) hyper-efficient strategy.
B) frictionless strategy.
C) streamlined strategy.
D) bullwhip strategy.
E) just-in-time strategy.
20) Why is overstocking warehouses not 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 inventory costs.
E) It lowers fill rate.
21) 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) perfect information
22) 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) streamlined
23) 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) diffraction
24) 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) maintenance; development
25) Systems that enable a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and to develop
sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product best describes supply chain ________
systems.
A) demand
B) delivery
C) optimization
D) execution
E) planning
26) Supply chain planning systems perform all of the following functions except
A) establish inventory levels for raw materials and finished goods.
B) identify the transportation mode to use for product delivery.
C) determine where to store finished goods.
D) determine how much product to manufacture in a given time period.
E) track the physical status of goods.
27) 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) customer planning
28) Supply chain ________ systems manage 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) demand
B) delivery
C) planning
D) execution
E) optimization
29) Capabilities of supply chain execution systems would not include
A) identifying the optimal transportation mode.
B) tracking the flow of finished goods.
C) managing materials.
D) managing warehouse operations.
E) managing the financial information involving all parties.
30) 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 what 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 MiracleGro
31) A supply chain driven by actual customer orders or purchases follows a ________ model.
A) pull-based
B) build-to-stock
C) push-based
D) replenishment-driven
E) optimized
32) A build-to-order supply-chain model is also called a ________ model.
A) supply-based
B) demand-driven
C) replenishment-driven
D) push-based
E) market-driven
33) Concurrent supply chains are made possible by which technology?
A) ERP systems
B) the Internet
C) supply-chain management systems
D) just-in-time supply-chain technologies
E) extranets
34) The business value of an effective supply chain management system includes all of the
following except
A) faster time to market.
B) cost reduction.
C) supply matched to demand.
D) improved delivery service.
E) increased inventory levels.
35) The bullwhip effect is countered by
A) globalization.
B) disintermediation.
C) implementing an SCM.
D) reducing information uncertainty.
E) product differentiation.
36) As they move through the supply chain, ________ are transformed into finished products
and shipped to retailers and customers.
A) raw materials
B) intermediate products
C) basic products
D) natural resources
E) nascent products
37) The total time it takes to complete a business process, from start to finish, is called its
________ time.
A) development
B) cycle
C) fulfillment
D) service
E) actualization
38) A company having difficulty with timely delivery of parts to its manufacturing plants should
implement a supply chain ________ system.
A) execution
B) planning
C) optimization
D) management
E) touch point
39) Supply chain management systems are a type of enterprise system.
40) The upstream portion of the supply chain consists of the organizations and processes for
distributing and delivering products to the final customers.
41) Supply chain inefficiencies can waste as much as 25 percent of a company’s operating costs.
42) Safety stock acts as a buffer for the lack of flexibility in the supply chain.
43) The bullwhip effect describes consistency and continuity in demand for a product as it passes
from one entity to the next across the supply chain.
44) Supply chain execution systems enable the firm to generate demand forecasts for a product
and to develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product.
45) Before the Internet, supply chain coordination was hampered by the difficulties of making
information flow smoothly among different internal supply chain processes.
46) Inefficiencies in a supply chain are primarily caused by inaccurate information.