ch 17 international business

True or False: Make-or-buy decisions are ones that concern the procurement of raw materials for the manufacturing process

False the make or buy decision for a global firm is a strategic decision concerning whether to produce an item in house make or purchase it from an outside supplier buy

True or False: Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a wide-ranging business planning and control system.

False: Enterprise resource planning is a wide ranging business planning and control system that includes supply chain related subsystems

True or False: Just-in-time systems allow for maintaining a level of inventory that will tide a firm over in the case of shortages brought about by disruption among suppliers.

False: the drawback of a JIT system is that it leaves a firm without a buffer stock of inventory

True or False: he upstream supply chain includes the organizations that are involved in the supply chain from the production facility to the end consumer.

False: the upstream supply chain includes all of the organizations and resources that are involved in the portion of the supply chain from raw materials to the production facility

which of the following is an idea set forth by W. Edwards Deming?

The organizational environment should allow employees to report problems.

True or False: A U.S. microchip company has a factory in India, where there are highly skilled engineers working on the next best thing in microchips. This is a lead factory.

True: a lead factory is intended to create new processes, products, and technologies that can be used throughout the global firm in all parts of the world.

True or False: A relatively low level of fixed costs can make it economical to perform a particular activity in several locations at once.

True: a relatively low level of fixed costs allows the firm to better accommodate demands for local responsiveness

True or FalseIn recent years, the trend among U.S. firms is to outsource the "production" of certain service activities to developing nations where labor costs are lower.

True: in recent years the trend among us furms is to outsource the production of certain service activities to developing nations where labor costs are lower

what is the major purpose of using just-in-time (JIT) systems?

economizing inventory holding costs

what is an advantage of engaging in house production of the entire product

firms can lower costs through in house production if it is more efficient than other production facilities

what allows a company to produce a wider variety of end products at a unit cost that at one time could be achieved only through the mass production of a standardized output

flexible manufacturing

an ______ is a facility that positions and allows customization of products for delivery to worldwide wholesalers or retailers or directly to consumers anywhere in the world

global distribution center

Tina's formal attire is trying to decide if it should purchase new machinery that would allow it to add zippers to another firm. Tina's is in the midst of an _____ decision.

make-or-buy

the refers to the level of output at which most plant-level scale economies are exhausted

minimum efficient scale

Feldman Fire Protection Systems is a company based in the United States. It has transferred its information technology processes to a supplier in Canada. This is an example of

nearshoring

an _____ factory serves the primary purpose of producing component or finished goods more cheaply than producing them at home or in any other market. It has minimal engagement with suppliers

offshore

When a multinational corporation buys products or services from one of its suppliers that produces them somewhere else, whether domestically or globally, it is referred to as

outsourcing

Rico's company has decided to implement the Six Sigma approach. His company would adopt this approach as a way to

reduce product defects

concentration of production is appropriate when

the product's value-to-weight ratio is high.

in which situation would a firm to choose to decentralize production

the production technology has low fixed costs and low minimum efficient scale.