Exam 1

Flow rate tells us:

how much stuff moves through the process per unit of time.

Operations management is about:

improving the way that we and/or others do their work

A possible drawback of having each employee specialize in one or several activities in serving customers at a coffee shop is:

increased idle time

The capacity of a nonbottleneck resource is _________ the capacity of the process.

larger than

A long waiting line at the checkout of a supermarket at some moments in the day is an example of ____ and a symptom of ____:

variability, inflexibility

The flow rate of customers at a state is 100 per hour. The fair is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. How many customers come through the fair during that time?

1200

If _______ is constrained, we should ________ the staffing level to raise capacity.

capacity, raise

More guests showing up than expected in a party is an example of:

demand variability

Four employees at a fast-food restaurant each perform one of the four activities in serving a customer: greet customer, take order, process order, and deliver order. The processing time for each activity is given as follows: Assume demand is unlimited. What is the average labor utilization?

0.40

Job candidates are leaving an office every 50 minutes. Each candidate goes through three activities during the office visit: verification, written test, and interview. Verification takes 1 minute, the written test takes 40 minutes, and the interview takes 10 minutes. Assume there is only one resource dedicated to each activity. What is the utilization of the bottleneck resource?

1.5

Ten customers visit C&A from 8 a.m to 10 a.m. The customers spend 10, 15, 20, 11, 8, 12, 25, 18, 29, and 32 minutes in the bakery. On average, how many customers are in the bakery from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.?

1.5

Twenty new members are elected to an agency every two years. The agency has 100 members on average overall. How long does a member hold his/her position at the agency?

10 years

C&A Bakery serves 100 customers over the course of an 8-hour day. What is the flow rate of customers in this bakery per hour?

12.5

Students are going through a three-step process to obtain their ID cards. Each student will spend 2 minutes at the registration desk before going to one of three cashiers to pay a fee for the ID card. After that, he/she will visit one of four ID processing stations to have his/her picture taken and ID card printed. Visits to the cashier and ID processing station take 10 and 20 minutes respectively. If the demand rate is 0.125 students per minute, how long does it take to process 20 students assuming the system is empty?

160 minutes

A bank has three tellers. It takes a teller 6 minutes to serve one customer. What is the capacity of the bank (in customers per hour) over the course of an 8-hour workdaya?

240

One employee is in charge of the following activities at a drive-through of a bank: What is the capacity (in customers per hour) of thee employee?

26.67

A drive-through at C&A Fast Food serves 300 customers a 10-hour day. On average, a customer spends 2 minutes waiting in line, 3 minutes placing the order, and 5 minutes completing the order before leaving the drive-through. How many customers on average are "in" the drive-through (i.e., from the time they enter to the time they exit the drive-through) on a typical day?

5

Patients are arriving at a clinic at a rate of two per minute. Each patient's visit consists of four steps: check in, record vital signs, receive treatment, and check out. A receptionist takes 1 minute to check a patient in. A nurse takes 2 minutes to record the patient's vital signs. A doctor spends 10 minutes with a patient. A staff member takes 3 minutes to check a patient out. What is the process capacity in patients per hour?

6

Arrivals and departures to C&A Optometrist are collected and reported below: What is the average flow time of its patients in minutes?

65

Which of the following is a definition of the term "process"?

A set of activities that transforms a collection of inputs into outputs.

Which of the following is an appropriate input of a bakery?

Flour

Beyond just executing the current way of doing things, operations management is about:

Innovating its operations to shift the efficiency frontier.

Which of the following is a key process metric?

Inventory

Three restaurants are compared along the dimensions of responsiveness and cost performance, as shown below: Which of the following conclusions can be drawn about restaurant C?

It is inefficient.

C&A Fast Food has four activities in serving a customer: greet customer, take order, process order, and deliver order. Each activity is staffed by one employee (for a total of four employees). The processing time for each activity is given as follows: Assume demand is unlimited. To which activity should C&A assign an additional employee in order to increase process capacity?

Process Order

A firm investing in a manufacturing plant is an example of which type of costs it incurs as a manufacturer?

Resources

A restaurant promising a meal in two minutes or less attempts to cater to which part of the customer utility function?

Timing