The four phases of the product life cycle are incubation, introduction, growth, and
decline.
In general, the lot-for-lot approach should be used whenever economical.
Some business activities, such as human resources and legal processes, cannot be
outsourced.
One motive for using demand-influencing aggregate planning options is to create uses
for excess capacity within an organization.
The maximin criterion is pessimistic, while the maximax criterion is optimistic.
The time-phased product structure, unlike the bill of material, adds the concept of lead
times.
In order to have a career in operations management, one must have a degree in statistics
or quantitative methods.
McDonald’s “Made for You” kitchen system represents a strategic layout decision even
though an obvious benefit of the system is a dramatic reduction in the inventory of food
prepared in advance.
The dominant problem associated with the fixed-position layout is that workers are
fixed in position, and cannot be reassigned.
Quality is mostly the business of the quality control staff, not ordinary employees.
Of the several determinants of service quality, access is the one that relates to keeping
customers informed in language they can understand.
The first unit of a product took 50 hours to build, and the learning curve is 85%. How
long will it take to make the 10th unit? (Use at least three decimals in the exponent if
you use the logarithmic approach.)
A) less than 24 hours
B) from 25 to 30 hours
C) from 30 to 35 hours
D) from 35 to 40 hours
E) more than 40 hours
The aggregate plan gets input or feedback from which of the following areas?
A) engineering
B) finance, marketing, and human resources
C) the master production schedule
D) procurement, production, and general management
E) all of the above
Which of the following statements regarding critical paths is true?
A) The shortest of all paths through the network is the critical path.
B) Some activities on the critical path may have slack.
C) Every network has only one critical path.
D) On a specific project, there can be multiple critical paths, all with exactly the same
duration.
E) The duration of the critical path is the average duration of all paths in the project
network.
A local university is considering changes to its class structure in an effort to increase
professor productivity. The old schedule had each professor teaching 5 classes per
week, with each class meeting an hour per day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Each class contained 20 students. The new schedule has each professor teaching only 3
classes, but each class meets daily for an hour. New classes contain 50 students.
a. Calculate the labor productivity for the initial situation (students/hour).
b. Calculate the labor productivity for the schedule change (students/hour).
c. Are there any ethical considerations that should be accounted for?
d. Suppose that each teacher also is required to have 2 hours of Office Hours each day
he/she taught class. Is the schedule change a productivity increase?
Which of the following is the term used for medium range capacity planning with a
time horizon of three to eighteen months?
A) material requirements planning
B) short-range planning
C) strategic planning
D) aggregate planning
E) none of the above
The upper and lower limits for diving ring diameters made by John’s Swimming are 40
and 39 cm. John took 11 samples with the following average diameters (39, 39.1, 39.2,
39.3, 39.4, 39.5 39.6, 39.7, 39.8, 39.9, 40). Is the process in control?
A) Yes, no diameters exceeded the control limits.
B) No, some diameters exceeded the control limits.
C) No, there is a distinguishable pattern to the samples.
D) No, the range is not in control.
E) There is not enough information to make a decision.
Customers take a number as they join the waiting line of the customer service counter at
a discount store. There are two customer service agents. Provide the most likely
characteristics of this system.
a. name of model
b. number of channels
c. number of phases
d. arrival rate distribution
e. service time distribution
f. population size
g. queue discipline
From a portion of a probability distribution, you read that P(demand = 1) is 0.05,
P(demand = 2) is 0.15, and P(demand = 3) is .20. The cumulative probability for
demand 3 would be
A) 0.133
B) 0.200
C) 0.400
D) 0.600
E) cannot be determined from the information given
Service blueprinting
A) provides the basis to negotiate prices with suppliers
B) mimics the way people communicate
C) determines the best time for each step in the process
D) focuses on the provider’s interaction with the customer
E) shows how Ishikawa techniques can be added to improve quality
If Brandon Edward were working to develop a forecast using a moving averages
approach, but he noticed a detectable trend in the historical data, he should
A) use weights to place more emphasis on recent data
B) use weights to minimize the importance of the trend
C) change to a ntive approach
D) use a simple moving average
E) change to a qualitative approach
Which of the following statements about Bechtel is true?
A) Even though Bechtel is over 100 years old, the Kuwaiti oil fields was its first
“project.”
B) Bechtel is the world’s premier manager of massive construction and engineering
projects.
C) Bechtel’s competitive advantage is supply-chain management.
D) While its projects are worldwide, its network of suppliers is largely in the U.S.
E) All of the above are true.
Which of the following is false regarding the links between JIT and quality?
A) Inventory hides bad quality; JIT immediately exposes it.
B) JIT reduces the number of potential sources of error by shrinking queues and lead
times.
C) As quality improves, fewer inventory buffers are needed; in turn, JIT performs
better.
D) If consistent quality exists, JIT allows firms to reduce all costs associated with
inventory.
E) All of the above are true.
Ethical issues that may arise in projects large and small include
A) gifts from contractors
B) exaggerated expense reports
C) compromised safety or health standards to save time or reduce costs
D) pressure to mask delays with false status reports
E) all of the above
Which of the following is not a disadvantage of ERP systems?
A) They involve an ongoing process for implementation, which may never be
completed
B) They have software that is off-the-shelf coding.
C) Expertise in ERP is limited, with staffing an ongoing problem.
D) They are so complex that many companies cannot adjust to them.
E) Implementation may require major changes in the company and its processes.
Which of the following is the author of the phrase “Inventory is evil”?
A) Poka Yoke
B) Pat “Keiretsu” Morita
C) Kanban Polka
D) Shigeo Shingo
E) none of the above
A car dealer is trying to reduce the number of days of inventory held at any given time
on the lot. Assume that he projects the daily sales rate as the last two months averaged.
Assume that the monthly sales rate for August was 12 cars/day, September was 14
cars/day, October was 12 cars/day, and November was 8 cars/day. Given an inventory
of 500 cars at the start of November and 400 at the start of December, determine the
number of days of inventory on hand at the start of November and December (also
assume each month has EXACTLY 30 days of sales).
Increasing the number of parts or components in a product tends to reduce its reliability.
Why is this true only when adding components in series?
Bridget is considering how to get to work over the summer. She has two options.
Option A is to buy a seasonal bus pass for $100. Option B is to pay $.25 for each ride.
Identify the fixed and variable costs for each option. If she has to ride both to and from
work, how many days of work would it take for the seasonal pass to cost the same
amount as Option B?
If a service firm were to attempt a pure level strategy for aggregate planning, should its
level of output be at average demand, peak demand, or minimum demand?
At Morgan’s Transformer Rebuilding, five jobs are ready now for dispatching to a
machine center. The processing times and due dates for the jobs are given below. Use
earliest due date to sequence the jobs, and calculate the average completion time, the
average job lateness, and the average number of jobs in the machine center.
What advantages may result from effectively outsourcing the logistics function to a
third party?
Identify the five steps of DMAIC.
What are the realities of forecasting that companies face?
The project remains in one place and workers and equipment come to that one work
area in a __________ layout.