Service and Production Ops Exam #2

A process flowchart uses which of the following symbols to represent flows of material or customers in a flow diagram?

Arrow

To reduce process throughput time, you might try which of the following actions?

Change the sequence of activities.

Which of the following is not considered an input to the layout decision in facility layout analysis?

Cost per square foot of alternative facilities

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

Cross-training employees.

Which of the following refers to the physical presence of the customer in a service system?

Customer contact

______ variability is not one of the five sources of customer-induced variability.

Demand

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

Developing complementary services.

A service operation by its very nature is a make-to-stock type of production process.

False

A process flowchart uses symbols to represent which of the following?

Flows of material or customers

Which of the following basic types of production layout formats is one in which equipment or work processes are arranged according to the progressive steps by which the product is made?

Assembly line layout

A manufacturing cell groups identical machines together to work on products having similar shapes and processing requirements.

False

A service system with a high degree of customer contact is less difficult to control than a low degree of customer contact service system.

False

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

False

Blocking in production processes is when activities in a stage must continue because there is no place to deposit completed items.

False

Cross-docking is a practice used in the international shipping industry that facilitates port utilization.

False

In facility location decision making, the factor-rating system is one of the least used general location techniques.

False

Make-to-order production processes are well suited for high-volume production of a standardized product.

False

Quality of life in a host community is not a major factor in making the facility location decision.

False

The customer is (or should be) the second most important focal point of all decisions in a service organization.

False

When a make-to-order production process is used, production is based on forecasts.

False

For a chase demand strategy which of the following does not have a high trade-off?

Labor-skill level.

The long-term relationship among the inventory, throughput, and flow time of a production system in steady state is called which of the following?

Little's law

In the service-system design matrix, a face-to-face total customization service encounter is expected to have which of the following?

Low production efficiency

In the service-system design matrix, a mail contact service encounter is expected to have which of the following?

Low sales opportunity

In the design of retail service layouts, the term "ambient conditions" does not refer to which of the following?

Staffing

Which of the following is a major factor that distinguishes service design and development from manufacturing design and development?

The service package is the major output of the development process.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of yield management?

There is one homogeneous customer class.

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

A favorable business climate in facility location decision making might include local government providing basic skill training for prospective members of the workforce.

True

An important aspect of service products is that they cannot be inventoried.

True

Facility location analysis considers proximity to customers important to timeliness of deliveries.

True

Facility location analysis considers the competitive imperative of locating near the appropriate labor pool to take advantage of high technical skills.

True

Hub-and-spoke systems combine the idea of consolidation and that of cross-docking.

True

Services typically have multiple site locations to maintain close contact with customers.

True

Setup time is the time required to prepare a process to produce a particular item.

True

The objective of a retail service layout is to maximize net profit per square foot of store space.

True

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

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

Consider a three sequentially stepped process named as Process A, Process B and Process C. Input comes into Process A. Output form A goes into Process B. Output from B goes into Process C. Output of C is the final output. Suppose that it takes 2 minutes per unit in Process A, 3 minutes per unit in Process B and 1 minute per unit in Process C. Suppose further that Process A receives input at the rate of 30 per hour. Where would you place a buffer?

in front of Process B

Faced with variable demand and a perishable capacity, a service manager can smooth demand by ______.

using reservations and appointments

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

yield management

A process flowchart uses which of the following symbols to represent a decision point in a flow diagram?

Diamond

Which of the following is not an example of the differential pricing policy?

Difference in hospital fees for walk-in and scheduled services.

Implicit services are not part of the service package.

False

Which of the following is not Plant location Method we discussed?

Hub and Spoke Method

______ is not a strategy for reduction of customer-induced variability.

Adapt to customer skill levels

Which of the following is not an infrastructure criteria used in facility location analysis?

Adequate low cost labor

Which of the following best describes the term "cycle time"?

Average time between completions of successive units

Which of the following is not a step in developing a manufacturing cell layout?

Disposing of leftover machinery and outsourcing ungrouped processes

In the service-system design matrix, an Internet and on-site technology service encounter is expected to have which of the following?

High production efficiency

One of the objectives of facility location analysis is to select a site with the lowest total cost. Which of the following costs should not be included in the analysis?

Incidental costs

A process flowchart uses which of the following symbols to represent storage areas or queues in a flow diagram?

Inverted triangle

An advantage of a make-to-stock process is which of the following?

It features rapid delivery of a standard product.

What transportation mode has very high initial investment costs but gives a very low cost per mile for products that are highly specialized and require no packaging?

Pipeline

Which one of the following is not a major factor distinguishing service design and development from manufacturing design and development?

Service operations can be protected by patents; manufacturing operations cannot.

Which of the following is a characteristic that can be used to guide the design of service systems?

Services cannot be inventoried.

Which of the following production process terms best describes the situation when activities in a stage of production must stop because there is no work?

Starving

In the design of retail service layouts, the term "ambient conditions" could refer to which of the following?

Temperature

Buffering in a production process refers to a storage area between stages of production activity where output of a stage is placed prior to being used in a "downstream" stage.

True

Cross-docking is an approach used in consolidation warehouses, where large shipments are broken down into small shipments for local delivery in an area.

True

Facility location analysis considers the competitive imperative of locating near the appropriate labor pool to take advantage of low wage costs and/or skill levels.

True

In designing a production layout a flexible line layout might have the shape of a "U".

True

Pacing in production processes refers to the fixed timing of the movement of items through the process.

True

Poka-yokes are procedures that block the inevitable mistake from becoming a service defect.

True

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

True

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

True

The purpose of differential pricing is to ______.

make off-peak usage attractive

A restaurant that features special lunchtime combo meals is providing all of the following benefits, except: ______.

promotes off-peak demand

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

promoting off-peak demand

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

promoting off-peak demand

A third-party logistics company is a firm that manages all or part of another company's product delivery operations.

True

Benchmarking refers to the practice of comparing the production metrics of one firm with the production metrics of another.

True

A "process" is any part of an organization that takes inputs and transforms them into outputs that, hopefully, are of greater value to the organization than the original inputs.

True

A project layout is characterized by a relatively low number of production units in comparison with workcenter and assembly-line formats.

True

A workcenter is a basic production layout format in which similar equipment or functions are grouped together.

True

An explicit service is readily observable by the senses.

True

An implicit service implies psychological benefits that the customer may sense only vaguely.

True

Assembly-line balancing means assigning all necessary tasks to a series of workstations so that each workstation has no more than can be done in the workstation cycle time and so that idle time across all workstations is minimized.

True

In facility location decision making, the educational and skill levels of the labor pool must match the company's needs.

True

The Association for Operations Management defines logistics as "the art and science of obtaining, producing, and distributing material and product in the proper place and in proper quantities."

True

The local government's willingness to invest in upgrading infrastructure to the levels required by a company is an important issue in a company's decision of where to locate a new facility.

True

A medical clinic has two doctors and each can treat 25 patients a day. The doctors see walk-in patients whose arrival times cannot be controlled, and also patients who have made appointments. Knowing the expected number of walk-ins per day, appointments are scheduled to utilize the doctors fully. The following table gives the expected number of walk-ins for a particular week: Day:Mon.Tue.Wed.Th.Fri.Expected Walk-ins:4535404540 What is the total number of appointments that can be scheduled during this week?

45

As a general rule, manufacturing workstations should not be very close together.

False

Which of the following is not a criterion that influences manufacturing plant or warehouse facility location decisions?

Immigration rules

For the purposes of assembly-line balancing, cycle time is found by dividing production time per day by the required units of output per day.

True

If you want to reduce process flow time, one solutions is to perform activities in the process in parallel.

True

In designing a production line, a mixed-model line layout is used by JIT manufacturers.

True

The objective of a mixed-model line layout is to meet the demand for a variety of products and avoid building high inventories.

True

The objective of facility location analysis is to select the site with the lowest total cost.

True

The term "assembly line" refers to progressive assembly linked by some material handling device.

True

Which of the following basic types of production layout formats is one that has similar equipment or functions are grouped together?

Workcenter layout

A process flowchart uses which of the following symbols to represent tasks or operations in a flow diagram?

Rectangle

Which of the following is not part of "the service triangle"?

Service encounter

Which of the following is not a basic type of production layout format?

Process layout