SCM 301 Test 1

If a delay in an activity will delay completion of the whole project, the activity ___________. is a dummy has slack is costly is on the critical path is represented by a node

is on the critical path

When we are unsure about the duration of project activities, we use ________ time estimates. probabilistic estimated variable cumulative deterministic

probabilistic

Given forecast errors of 4, 8, and -3, what is the mean absolute deviation? 4 12 3 6 5

5 Explanation:Convert each error into an absolute value and then average.

Given an actual demand of 59, a previous forecast of 64, and an alpha of .3, what would the forecast for the next period be using simple exponential smoothing? 36.9 62.5 57.5 65.5 60.5

62.5 Explanation:Multiply the previous period's forecast error (-5) by alpha and then add to the previous period's forecast.

For the data given below, what would the naive forecast be for period 5? Period Value 1 58 2 59 3 60 4 61 A. 61 B. 58 C. 59.2 D. 62 E. Cannot tell from data given

A. 61 Explanation:Period 5's forecast would be period 4's demand.

Which of the following is not included in a PERT chart node Slack time Task duration Earliest start date Standard deviation Late start date

Standard Deviation

To generate new product ideas, a firm usually seeks inspiration from all the following except: Competitors Customers Company's engineers Suppliers Stockholders

Stockholders

he owner of Firewood To Go is considering buying a hydraulic wood splitter which sells for $50,000. He figures it will cost an additional $100 per cord to purchase and split wood with this machine, while he can sell each cord of split wood for $125. What would the potential profit be if he were to split 4,000 cords of wood with this machine? $75,000 $100,000 $200,000 $50,000 $0

$50,000 Explanation:Total revenue for 4,000 cords would be 4000 × $125 = $500,000. Total variable cost would be 4000 × $100 = $400,000. Total fixed cost would be $50,000. Therefore, profit would be $500,000 - ($50,000 + $400,000) = $50,000.

In exponential smoothing, which of the following values for alpha would generate the most stable forecast? 1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.10

0.10

Porter's 3 Strategies

1. Cost Leadership 2. Differentiation 3. Focus

List the four support activities of Porter's Value Chain

1. Firm infrastructure 2. HR Management 3. Technology development 4. Procurement

List the five primary activities of Porter's Value Chain

1. Inbound logistics 2. Operations 3. Outbound logistics 4. Marketing and Sales 5. Service

3 basic business strategies

1. Low cost 2. Responsiveness 3. Differentiation from competitors

Operations influences competitiveness by:

1. Product/service design 2. Cost of output 3. Location 4. Quality 5. SCM

3 characteristics of core competencies

1. provide access to wide variety of markets 2. Improved customer received benefits of end product 3. Difficult to imitate

The owner of Firewood To Go is considering buying a hydraulic wood splitter which sells for $50,000. He figures it will cost an additional $100 per cord to purchase and split wood with this machine, while he can sell each cord of split wood for $125. How many cords of wood would he have to split with this machine to break even? 5,000 3,000 1,000 0 2,000

2,000 Explanation:Divide the fixed cost of $50,000 by the per-cord contribution margin of $125 - $100 = $25. Break-even quantity = $50000/$25 = 2000.

The owner of Firewood To Go is considering buying a hydraulic wood splitter which sells for $50,000. He figures it will cost an additional $100 per cord to purchase and split wood with this machine, while he can sell each cord of split wood for $125. How many cords of wood would he have to split with this machine to make a profit of $30,000? 1,000 500 2,000 1,500 3,200

3,200 Explanation: Add the desired profit to the fixed cost: $50,000 + $30,000 = $80,000. Then divide that total by the per-cord contribution margin of $125 - $100 = $25. Quantity = $80000/$25 = 3200.

If inputs increase by 30% and outputs decrease by 15%, what is the percentage change in productivity? 100% increase 15% decrease 11.54% increase 15% increase 34.62% decrease

34.62% decrease

What are the two categories of quantitative models? Causal and Delphi Delphi and non-causal Causal and non-causal Delphi and time series Causal and time series

Casual and time series

All of the following are considered Porter's generic strategies except: Cost leadership strategy Competitive strategy Differentiation strategy Focus strategy All of the previous are generic strategies

Competitive Strategy

Given the following historical data, what is the simple three-period moving average forecast for period 6? Period Value 1 73 2 68 3 65 4 72 5 67 A.115 B.67 C.69 D. 68 E. 68.67

D. 68 Explanation:Average demand from periods 3 through 5.

I was recently pulled over by a police car. The police officer pointed out that one of my car lights was out and that I needed to replace it. I stopped at a nearby car part shop and purchased a new light bulb. I went home and proceeded to what I thought would be a two-minutes repair. It turns out that the whole replacement operation took me no less than 20min because I had to remove multiple components before I could access the light bulb compartment. This is a good illustration of a poor ________________ on the part of the car company.

Design for maintainability

Nowadays, cars are designed in a way that makes it easy to access/replace components and facilitates servicing. This is called: Design for sustainability Design for manufacturing Design for maintainability Design for reliability Design for profitability

Design for maintainability

In the McDonald's NPD video, which of the following was described as essential: Coming up with new ice cream flavors Finding the right pricing for the new procucts Changing the menu items as often as possible Designing toys to accompany the kid's menu items Designing a menu items that can be easily cooked at every McDonald's location

Designing a menu items that can be easily cooked at every McDonald's location

Which forecasting method suffers from the possibility of having one person's opinion dominate the forecast? Executive opinion Market research Naïve method Delphi method Gamma method

Executive opinion

Which of the following statements regarding the strategy formulation process is incorrect: It is a bottom-up process The choice of a corporate strategy is determined by the mission statement, the core competencies of the firm and the external opportunities and threats. A strategy is more about "how to get there?" than "where are we going?" It is critical for a company to maintain a tight alignment between customer wants/demands, corporate strategy, functional strategy and supplier strategy. At the functional level, we use the term "competitive priority" rather that "generic strategy"

It is a bottom-up process

Consider a pizza parlor. Which of the following would not be a valid productivity measure Labor hours / pizzas produced. Pizzas produced / number of workers used Pizza produced / cost of all inputs used Pizza produced / number of ovens Pizza produced / cost of workers and ingredients

Labor hours/pizzas produced

Which of the following is not a new trend of OM? Offshoring Mass production Green manufacturing E-commerce Mass customization

Mass Production

Which of the following forecasting model requires the least amount of data? Moving average Weighted moving average Simple mean Naïve Exponential smoothing

Naive Explanation:the naive method requires only data point, the actual number of the previous time period

Which of the following statements about core competency is incorrect? Core competencies should be difficult to imitate Core competencies should be kept in-house Core competencies emphasizes thinking in terms of skills/abilities rather than in terms of products. One of IBM's core competency is to manufacture personal computers All of the previous statements are correct

One of IBM's core competency is to manufacture personal computers

_______________ structure the sequencing of activities. Precedence relationships Backschedules Evaluation of costs Work breakdowns Crashings

Precedence relationships

Evaluating a product idea to determine its likelihood of success is: Product screening Estimating Technological forecasting Product forecasting Product evolution

Product Screening

Buying a competitor's new product and studying its design features by disassembling it and analyzing its parts and features is: Disaggregation Benchmarking Reverse engineering Value engineering Reengineering

Reverse engineering Explanation:I talk about that in the idea development stage of product development, video lecture part 1.

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

Sustainability Explanation: 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.

The forecasting method which uses anonymous questionnaires to achieve a consensus forecast is: time series analysis. the Delphi method. sales force opinions. consumer surveys. executive opinions.

The Delphi method

The responsibilities of the operations manager include: -Promoting the organization's goods or services. -The creation of goods or provision of services. -Allocating financial resources throughout the organization. -Analyzing investment proposals. -Assessing consumer wants and needs.

The creation of goods or provision of services Explanation:The scope of operations management ranges across the organization. The operations manager is the key figure in the system with the ultimate responsibility for the creation of goods or provision of services.

That is the current mission statement at Tesla? To design the most advanced electric cars To produce batteries for electric cars To store energy To accelerate the transition to sustainable energy To make money

To accelerate the transition to sustainable energy

All of the following are common guidelines of design for sustainability, except: Make the product easy to dissassemble Use state-of-the-art production equipment Make the product easy to recycle Use material that naturally degrade over time Refrain from using toxic materials and chemicals

Use state-of-the-art production equipment

What is the best visual way to display graphically the scheduled times for activities in a project? a precedence relationship table an affinity diagram a project structure tree an histogram a Gantt chart

a Gantt chart

Project managers use network planning techniques to ___________________. invert activities evaluate costs calculate the expected completion time of the project estimate how long it will take to assign activities assign resources to activities

calculate the expected completion time of the project

Shortening the total time for completing a project by incurring higher costs from shortening activities is_____________. crashing project control normal cost backward pass leveling

crashing

We use ___________ time estimates when we can make a reliable estimate. probabilistic variable estimated deterministic cumulative

deterministic

Which of the following would probably not benefit from the use of critical path scheduling? receiving orders for the company's products by phone developing a new computer system for financial planning building a new natural gas pipeline moving the company's credit card center to a new city constructing a new bridge over the Mississippi River

receiving orders for the company's by phone

Gradual, long-term movement in time series data is called: random variation. cycles. irregular variation. seasonal variation. trend.

trend

Which of the following is not characteristic of a project? to be completed in a specified time period activities have defined precedence relationships has multiple activities has a specific objective typically performed by external consultants

typically performed by external consultants