OPER 3204 Exam 2

All but one of the following are techniques to lessen the boredom of waiting customers: A) displaying time with a large analog clock. B) installing a television tuned to CNN. C) telling customers how long the wait is at different points in the queue. D) placement of mirrors in elevators.

A) displaying time with a large analog clock.

_________ is not a reason for outsourcing services. A) Leveraging benefits from a supplier B) Allowing the firm to focus on core competence C) Providing access to latest technology D) None of the above

D) none of the above

The following are all advantages of the single queue system, except: A) the arrangement guarantees fairness by ensuring that the FCFS rule applies. B) the anxiety of "Am I in the fastest line?" is eliminated. C) the problem of line cutting is reduced. D) the customer has the option of selecting a particular server of preference.

D) the customer has the option of selecting a particular server of preference.

Which of the following strategies is inappropriate for managing capacity and demand?

Decrease customer participation in the service process.

Which of the following is not a strategy for managing capacity?

Developing complementary services.

A good supply chain management strategy places a strong emphasis on promotional pricing.

False

A health club offering a reduced rate membership for students to workout before 4:00 p.m. on weekdays is:

promoting off-peak demand.

________ is(are) the highest level of professional body of knowledge

self-motivated creativity

Which one of the following four steps in "daily workshift scheduling" is out of order?

Assign operators to shifts.

The physical goods supply chain contains all but one of the following elements: A) Competitor B) Distributor C) Retailer D) Customer

A) Competitor

Which one the following is not a guiding principle of lean philosophy? A) Satisfy the needs of customers by doing only value-added activities B) Be flexible in response to customer demands C) Define the value stream by flowcharting the process D) Eliminate waste

B) Be flexible in response to customer demands

Which one of the following is not a principle of Deming's philosophy? A) Customer satisfaction B) Management by facts C) Employee loyalty D) Respect for people

C) Employee loyalty

Because customers participate directly in the service process, the success of technological innovation is dependent upon:

Customer acceptance

Which one of the following is not true of multiple queue configurations? A) Division of labor is possible. B) The FCFS rule is not always followed. C) Service provided can be differentiated D) Jockeying is eliminated.

D) Jockeying is eliminated.

A Poisson process describing the distribution of departures from a busy server with an average rate of 15 per hour is equivalent to the negative exponential distribution of service times with a mean of 5 minutes

False

A disadvantage of yield management is that it cannot be implemented in real time.

False

An example of segmenting demand is seen when movie theaters offer matinee prices before 6:00 p.m.

False

Concealment of the waiting line or at least part of it is a very effective deterrent against reneging.

False

If the number of arrivals in an interval of time follows an exponential distribution, the interarrival time is known to follow a Poisson distribution.

False

Level demand and chase capacity are the two generic strategies for capacity management.

False

Overbooking is a strategy that can be used to smooth demand.

False

Service tangibility increases as the focus of the service moves from property to people to process.

False

The bullwhip effect is a phenomenon in the physical supply chain that describes the inventory stocking levels at various stages

False

The main advantage of the multiple queue configuration is that it guarantees fairness to all by ensuring that a first-come-first-served rule applies to all arrivals

False

The objective of lean service is a purposeful flow of satisfied customers.

False

The use of a ski-resort hotel for business conventions during the summer is an example of using the complementary service strategy.

False

Time perishability of service capacity is a challenge for service managers because customers demand immediate service.

False

Work shift scheduling attempts to deal with the service utilization problem by controlling the demand for the service and partitioning it so that utilization is uniform.

False

A bank is an example of a service provider with a single-level bi-directional service supply relationship.

True

A drawback to increased consumer participation is the fact that service quality is no longer completely under the control of the provider of the service.

True

Customer-supplier duality acknowledges the customer inputs in a service relationship.

True

Outsourcing can expose a firm to data security and customer privacy issues.

True

Outsourcing can provide access to the latest technology without investment.

True

Yield management is a strategy that manages both demand and capacity.

True

Yield management is the process of allocating a fixed perishable resource to several market segments in the most profitable manner.

True

What one of the following is not a characteristic of yield management?

There is one homogeneous customer class

A queue is said to be finite if there is an upper limit on the number of consumers who are allowed to be in it. Consumers who come after the queue is full, either balk or are refused entrance.

True

Benchmarking measures a firm's quality performance by comparing it to the performance of other companies that are known for being "best in class."

True

Customer demand variability is the most difficult factor to determine in a goods supply chain.

True

Excess capacity is required in a service system because variability in customer arrivals and service times creates idle capacity.

True

For a multiple channel queuing system with multiple queues, allowing customers to jockey will enhance service utilization

True

In the physical goods supply chain, information moves to the left and material to the right.

True

Product postponement is the strategy of stocking a product in generic form for later customization.

True

Service capacity is defined in terms of an achievable level of output per unit time.

True

Some restaurants use tables and chairs instead of booths to create more flexible capacity.

True

The Deming wheel is a repetitive cycle where quality improvements result from continuous incremental turns of the wheel.

True

The average time a customer should expect to wait can be calculated using just the mean arrival rate and the mean service rate

True

The fishbone chart offers a structured approach for a team to identify, explore, and display graphically all of the possible causes of a problem.

True

The term queue configuration refers to the number of queues, their locations, their spatial requirements, and their effect on consumer behavior.

True

The total inventory in a queuing system has two components: inventory in waiting and inventory in service.

True

Using part-time personnel at fast-food restaurants allows capacity to vary with demand.

True

Yield management is a pricing and capacity allocation system that was developed by American Airlines.

True

A good overbooking strategy should:

balance the expected opportunity cost of idle service capacity and expected cost of turning away customers who have reservations.

All but one of the following are quality tools for analysis and problem solving. A) run chart B) control chart C) flow chart D) bar chart

bar chart

Which one of the following is not a strategy to manage demand?

cross-training employees

For the exponential distribution we have:

the mean equal to its standard deviation

The cost of service capacity is determined by

the number of servers on duty.

Which of the following is not a criterion for capacity planning?

the rate of departure

Which one of the following is not a characteristic of firms using yield management?

variable capacity

Several approaches to demand management exist, but only _______ seeks to maximize revenue.

yield management

The strategy of segmenting demand is feasible only when:

demand is not from a homogeneous source.

Travel booking is a service that falls in the _________ category of outsourcing business service.

facilitator

After selecting a line in a multiple queue system, a customer is ________ when she or he switches to a different line perceive it to be moving faster.

jockeying

The fact that no patient arrives in the last hour does not change the probability that a patient will arrive in the next 10 minutes. This is an example of _________________________________________.

memoryless property

Which queue configuration permits opportunities for division of labor and service differentiation?

multiple queue

Which of the following service providers likely would be involved in a single-level bi-directional service supply relationship?

professor

Bars that offer happy hours in the afternoon are using the strategy of:

promoting off-peak demand.

Which of the following is not a source of uncertainty in managing a supply chain?

quality control

A ________ project is not project category for a professional firm.

routine

For the system to operate satisfactorily over the long run,

the capacity to serve must be greater than the average demand.

Making knowledge available to customers at low cost is called:

transfer

The term interarrival time refers to the time elapsed between initiation of service and its completion.

False

Pooling of services is an approach toward achieving economies of scale in services through better utilization of services.

True

Which of the following statements is not part of Deming's 14-point philosophy? A) Create constancy of purpose for improvements of product and service B) Promote numerical goals for the workforce C) Constantly and forever improve the system of production and service D) Cease dependence on mass inspection

B) Promote numerical goals for the workforce

Balking is the term used to describe the phenomenon of customers leaving a queue that they have joined before service is rendered.

False

Capacity usually is measured in terms of outputs (e.g. guest nights) rather than inputs (e.g. number of hotel rooms) in service firms.

False

Process capability index measures the variability in a process.

False

According to Maister, one of the following statements is nottrue of waits.

In-process waits feel longer than preprocess waits.

The impact of pricing on service chain management was _____ before and _____ after.

fixed, variable

The purpose of differential pricing is to:

make off-peak usage attractive

When the number of arrivals per unit time follows a Poisson distribution, the most important implication is that:

the time between arrivals is exponentially distributed

Bidirectional optimization could be considered an example of a win-win outcome.

True

Capacity planning decisions deal implicitly with decisions on the cost of making consumers wait and the extent to which these costs can be borne.

True

Expected loss for an overbooking reservation strategy would be calculated by multiplying the loss for each no-show possibility and its probability of occurrence, and then adding the products.

True

The critical fractile is a cumulative probability of demand.

True

The strategy of segmenting demand to reduce variation makes use of the fact that demand for a service seldom is derived from a homogeneous source.

True