oscm test 1

4) Marketing depends on operations for information regarding:

Lead time Marketing uses lead time information to make promises to customers.

T/F The value of outputs is measured by the prices customers are willing to pay for goods or services.

TRUE Customers' willingness to pay for goods or services sets the value of these outputs.

T/F Among Ford's many contributions was the introduction of mass production, using the concepts of interchangeable parts and division of labor.

TRUE Ford made mass production a practical success.

Operations management involves continuous decision making; hopefully most decisions made will be

informed Informed decisions incorporate all relevant issues

Which of the following is least likely to affect the cost an organization incurs in producing its products or services?

price Relative to the other choices, price is least likely to affect cost.

The weekly output of a fabrication process is shown below, together with data for labor and material inputs. Standard selling price is $125 per unit. Overhead is charged weekly at the rate of $1,500 plus .5 times direct labor cost. Assume a 40-hour week and an hourly wage of $16. Material cost is $10 per foot. What is the average multifactor productivity? Week 1: Output-392 Workers-5 Material-2720 ft Week 2: Output-408 Workers-6 Material-2790 ft

1.457 Calculate multifactor productivity for each week, then average the two.

Which of the following is not true about the systems approach? A) A systems approach concentrates on efficiency within subsystems. B) A systems viewpoint is almost always beneficial in decision making. C) A systems approach is essential whenever something is being redesigned or improved. D) A systems approach emphasizes interrelationships among subsystems. E) All of the choices are true.

All of the choices are true. Subsystem efficiency doesn't necessarily translate into overall system efficiency.

The process of comparing outputs to previously established standards to determine if corrective action is needed is called:

Controlling Controls are used to maintain performance.

If one organization is better able than most to respond to changes in demands or opportunities, we say that organization exhibits higher:

agility Agility refers to the ability of an organization to respond quickly to demands or opportunities.

Which of the following would be least important in the pursuit of a time-based strategy?

cost minimization Many means for minimizing cost would have the effect of making a time-based strategy less feasible.

Which is not an area of significant difference between manufacturing and service operations?

cost per unit Manufacturing operations aren't necessarily more or less efficient than service operations.

For firms competing in worldwide markets, conducting ________ is more complex, since what works in one country or region might not work in another.

environmental analysis Environmental analysis takes into account the relevant factors in the environment; there are more of these if there are more markets to consider.

Knowledge about challenges specific to the operations function can help marketing personnel to judge how ________ new product designs will be.

manufacturable Greater understanding of operations helps product designers better judge the manufacturability of their new designs.

Two widely used metrics of variation are the ________ and the ________.

mean; standard deviation The mean and standard deviation summarize important facets regarding the variation in a process.

Years ago in the overnight delivery business, providing package tracking capability gave some firms a competitive advantage. Now, all firms must offer this capability simply to be in this line of business. This is an example of ________ becoming ________ over time.

order winners; order qualifiers What is an order qualifier and what is an order winner changes over time.

An organization's mission statement serves as the basis for:

organizational goals. Organizations' missions serve as the broad underpinning for their goals.

Modern firms increasingly rely on other firms to supply goods and services instead of doing these tasks themselves. This increased level of ________ is leading to increased emphasis on ________ management.

outsourcing; supply chain Supply chain management takes a more systemic view of the firm, its operations, and its suppliers.

The responsibilities of the operations manager are:

planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. The scope of operations management ranges across the organization.

Which of the following refers to service and production processes that use resources in ways that do not harm ecological systems?

sustainability Sustainability refers to service and production processes that use resources in ways that do not harm those ecological systems that support both current and future human existence.

A firm pursuing a strategy based on customization and variety will tend to structure and manage its supply chain to accommodate more ________ than a firm pursuing a strategy based on low cost and high volume.

variation Customization and variety lead to variation that must be accommodated.

A productivity increase in one operation that does not improve overall productivity of the business is not

worthwhile. Only system-wide productivity improvement makes the organization more productive.

In an assembly operation at a furniture factory, six employees assembled an average of 450 standard dining chairs per five-day week. What is the labor productivity of this operation?

15 chairs/worker/day Divide the output of 450 chairs by the inputs of 30 worker-days.

Which of the following statements about variation is false?

Any variation makes a production process less productive. The choice to offer customers greater variety might increase variation but increase productivity even more.

T/F The use of models will guarantee the best possible decisions.

FALSE Models are useful, but their use does not guarantee the best decisions.

T/F Companies are either producing goods or delivering services. This means that only one of the two types of operations management strategies are used.

FALSE Most systems involve a blend of goods and services.

T/F Operations managers are responsible for assessing consumer wants and needs and selling and promoting the organization's goods or services.

FALSE Operation managers are not responsible for promoting goods/services.

T/F Operations management and marketing are the two functional areas that exist to support activities in other functions such as accounting, finance, IT, and human resources.

FALSE Operations management and marketing are supported by these functions.

T/F Assembly lines achieved productivity but at the expense of standard of living.

FALSE Productivity and standard of living go hand in hand.

T/F "Value added" by definition is always a positive number since "added" implies increases.

FALSE Some transformations result in the output being worth less than the inputs.

T/F The word "technology" is used only to refer to "information technology."

FALSE Technology also refers to the technology involved in resource transformations.

Increasing the service offered to the customer makes it more difficult to compete on the basis of:

Price More extensive service can be more costly, and more costly outputs make price-based strategies more difficult.

T/F The greater the degree of customer involvement, the more challenging the design and management of operations.

TRUE Greater customer involvement leads to more complexity in the design and management of operations.

T/F The optimal solutions produced by quantitative techniques should always be evaluated in terms of the larger framework.

TRUE Quantitative techniques have limitations that must be considered.

T/F Elton Mayo's Hawthorne experiments were the focal point of the human relations movement, which emphasized the importance of the human element in job design.

TRUE The Hawthorne experiments were the beginning of the human relations movement.

Dealing with the fact that certain aspects of any management situation are more important than others is called:

recognition of priorities. Solutions tend to be targeted toward higher priority aspects of a situation.