Operations management

a popular visual tool for planning and scheduling simple projects, and for monitoring progress, is the:

Gantt chart

Project management differs from management of more traditional actives mainly because of:

I and II (its limited time frame and its unique, defined set of activities)

Which of the following are advantages of PERT and CPM

I and III (it is visual and activities that need to be watched closely can be identified

the basis for use of the beta distribution is PERT is:

its features that make it attractive in practice

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

price

the ratio of good output to quantify of raw material input is called

process yield

the responsibilities of the operations manager include:

the creation of goods or provision of services

which of the following stages is that one in which the project's expected costs, benefits, and risks are assessed?

initiating

Time-based approaches of business organizations focus on reducing the time to accomplish certain necessary activities. Time reductions seldom apply to:

internal audits

The advantage a precedence diagram has over a Gantt chart is:

its ability to reveal relationships among activities

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

recognition of priorities

core competencies in organizations generally do Not relate to:

sales price

at which point does crashing of a project cease?

when the cost to crash equals or exceeds the benefit of crashing

a hierarchical listing of what must be done in a project is called a:

work breakdown structure (WBS)

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

worthwhile

Budgeting, analysis of investment proposals, and provision of funds are activities associated with the _______ function.

Finance

Which of the following is true?

Functional strategies are shaped by corporate strategy.

Which of the following is Not one of the six key decisions in project management?

II (deciding on the project manager's title)

The fact that a few improvements in a few key areas of operations will have more impact than many improvements in many other areas is consistent with the:

Pareto phenomenon

Which of the following is Not true about the systems approach?

a systems approach concentrates on efficiency within subsystems

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

agility

technology choices can have a major impact on:

all of the above (productive, customer satisfaction, quality, costs)

In "crashing" a project, a manager will generally focus on activities which:

are on the critical path and are the least costly to crash

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

controlling

Unique attributes of firms that give them a competitive edge are called:

core competencies

shortening activity duration is called:

crashing

Which of the following is Not a characteristic of service operations?

easy measurement of productivity

Which of the following is Not among the chief reasons organizations fail?

emphasizing labor productivity in labor-intensive environments

which of the following is determined as a direct result of computing the earliest starting and finishing times for the activities of a project network?

expected project duration

Measurements taken at various points in the transformation process for control purposes are called:

feedback

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

forecasting demand

in project network analysis, "slack" refers to the difference between:

latest and earliest times

in a project network, the critical path is the sequence of activities which has the:

longest duration

Marketing personnel and product designers must work closely with operations to successfully develop and produce new products because operations personnel can best judge___ how new product designs will be

manufacturable

Which of the following factors would tend to reduce productivity?

more inexperienced workers

in the probabilistic approach to project network analysis, the time estimate annotated tm for any activity is the:

most likely time

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

organizational goals

a sequence of activities that leads from the starting node to the finishing node is called:

path

in the execution phase of a project's life cycle, activities are guided by decisions that were made in the ___ phase

planning

competitiveness doesn't include:

profitability

which of the following is Not a key factor of competitiveness?

size of organization

product design and choice of location are examples of ___ decisions

strategic

Which of the following most involves coordinating the activities among all the elements of the business including its suppliers and distributors?

supply chain management

Business organizations consist of three major functional areas which, ideally:

support one another

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

sustainability

which of the following is Not a benefit of using models in decision making?

they force the decision maker to take into account qualitative issues such as personalities and emotions