Chapter 14

Which of the following production efficiency benefits are realized as a result of self-managed work teams? (Check all that apply.)

Cost savings arise from eliminating supervisors. Eliminating supervisors creates a flatter, and therefore less costly, organizational hierarchy. Greater autonomy in self-managed work teams results in employees being more motivated and responsible.

_______ are raw, unsummarized and unanalyzed facts, such as the volume of sales.

Data

What steps do managers take to achieve control over organizational activities? (Check all that apply.)

Establish reasonable standards of performance Compare actual performance against established goals Measure actual performance

True or false: Specifying what customers want is easy since all customers want one thing--low priced products.

False

Generally speaking, which of the following are attributes that most customers want in the products or services they buy? (Check all that apply.)

High quality products Lower price Quicker service

The methods used for acquiring, sharing and transmitting information comprise _________ technology.

Information

______ is the set of methods or techniques for acquiring, organizing, storing, manipulating an d transmitting information.

Information technology

Which of the following are characteristic of a product layout? (Check all that apply.)

Machines are organized so that operations occur in a fixed sequence Workers are stationary A conveyor belt moves the product along while being assembled

What management process takes inputs and transforms them into finished goods and services?

Operations management

Which of the following are types of facilities layouts? (Check all that apply.)

Process layout Fixed-position layout Product layout

Tyler works on an assembly line. The machines are organized in a set sequence and he stays in one place and works on each item that comes to him via a conveyor belt. What type of facility layout does this represent?

Product layout

Which of the following factors help to determine the usefulness of information to a manager? (Check all that apply.)

Quality Relevance Timeliness Completeness

Why might employees resist changes to production techniques? (Check all that apply.)

They fear they will be reengineered out of a job. They rely on partial productivity. Job demands may increase excessively.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a process layout?

Workstations are organized in a fixed sequence

At Disney parks,between 500,00 and 1 million meals are served every day. Managers deal with food from multiple sources, kitchen and prep work, equipment servicing and service. This is an example of how managers use information to ______ activities and achieve goals.

coordinate

A basic task of management is to ______ to achieve organizational goals,

coordinate department and divisional activities

Process reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as ______. (Check all that apply.)

cost service speed quality

A tool or technique that uses IT to develop an ongoing relationship with customers to maximize the value an organization can deliver to them over time is ______.

customer relationship management

Jake keeps a database of all his customers. He updates it after every sale to reflect the customers' current needs. By doing so, Jake maximizes the value he can give his customers. Jake is using a(n) ______ system.

customer relationship management

Self-managed work teams are a(n) ______ technique.

efficiency-boosting

When implementing operations changes, managers must use judgment to understand the ______ implications of production techniques on employees.

ethical

Establishing goals, measuring actual performance, comparing actual performance against goals, and ______ are the four steps that managers take to achieve control over organizational activities.

evaluating results and taking corrective action

An operations management technique designed to increase the production system productivity of the machine-to-worker interface is the ______.

facilities layout

Operations management is the management of any aspect of the production system that transforms inputs into ______. (Check all that apply.)

finished goods services

The set of operations management techniques that attempts to reduce the setup costs associated with a production system is ______ manufacturing.

flexible

Data that are organized in a meaningful fashion, such as a graph showing costs over time, is called _______.

information

In order to make effective decisions, managers need access to complete and relevant _________

information

All of the raw materials, inputs, and component parts that Jake has available to him at any point in time is considered to be his ______.

inventory

The stock of raw materials, inputs, and component parts that an organization has on hand at a particular time is referred to as ________

inventory

Facilities layout is an operations management technique designed to increase the efficiency of the ______ interface.

machine-worker

Members of the typical self-managed work team assume responsibility for ______. (Check all that apply.)

ordering materials hiring new members work and vacation scheduling

Managers need information from ________ in order to make effective decisions. (Check all that apply.)

outside the organization inside the company

In a(n) _______ layout, workstations are relatively self-contained, and a product goes to whichever workstation is needed to perform the next operation to complete the product.

process

The downside to the flexibility of a(n) ________ layout is that it can reduce efficiency because it costly.

process

Mass production is an alternative name for ______ layout.

product

The three types of workstation arrangements are: process layout, fixed-position layout, and _______ layout.

product

The quality, cost, and features of an organization's outputs are determined by its ______ system.

production

Flexible manufacturing is the set of operations management techniques that attempts to ______ associated with a production system.

reduce the setup costs

With process reengineering, positive performance results can be measured in terms of ______. (Check all that apply.)

reduction in costs decrease in time-to-market increase in service

Managers determine that information is useful based on its quality, timeliness, completeness and ________

relevance

In designing production systems, managers look to ensure that can produce the outputs that have ______.

the attributes customers desire

The productivity measure that looks at how well an organization utilizes all of its resources-labor, capital, materials, energy-to produce its outputs is known as _____ productivity.

total factor

The total productivity factor measures how well an organization utilizes all of its resources to produce its output. Which of the following are resources that might be included in this calculation? (Check all that apply.)

total factor productivity