D470 Transportations, Logistics, and Distribution - Competency 4

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering distribution, logistics, warehousing, operations strategy, technology, and performance models.

Goods

Tangible physical inventory items that do not require direct customer involvement, have predictable demands, and can be protected by patents.

Services

Intangible offerings requiring direct customer involvement, having demands that are difficult to predict, and requiring efficient service management skills.

Service Encounter

Interactions between customers and service providers.

Value

The perception of the benefits associated with a good, service, or bundle of goods and services in relation to what a buyer pays.

Primary Good or Service

Core offering that attracts customers and responds to their basic needs.

Peripheral Goods or Services

Offerings that are not essential to the primary good or service but enhance it.

Variant

A Customer Benefit Package (CBP) attribute that departs from the standard CBP and is location- or firm-specific.

Value Chain

Network of facilities and processes describing the flow of materials, finished goods, services, information, and financial transactions from suppliers.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement System

A system that provides a company with customer ratings of specific goods and service features and indicates the relationship between ratings and future buying behavior.

Service Failures/Upsets

Errors in service creation and delivery.

Productivity

Ratio of the output of a process to its input.

Operational Efficiency

Ability to provide goods and services to customers with minimum waste and maximum utilization of resources.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL or 3BL)

A measurement of sustainability related to environmental, social, and economic factors.

Descriptive Statistics

Methods of describing and summarizing data using tabular, visual, and quantitative techniques.

Value of a Loyal Customer (VLC)

Metric that quantifies total revenues or profits each target market customer generates over a buyer's life cycle.

Baldridge Performance Excellence Framework

Framework that helps in the process of self-assessment to understand an organization's strengths and weaknesses.

Balanced Scorecard

Performance framework that translates strategies into measures communicating an organization's vision across financial, customer, innovation and learning, and internal perspectives.

Service-Profit Chain

Model stating that employees create customer value and drive profitability through a service delivery system based on cause-and-effect linkages.

Competitive Advantage

A firm's ability to achieve market and financial superiority over its competitors.

Order Qualifiers

Basic customer expectations.

Order Winners

Goods and service features and performance characteristics that differentiate one customer benefit package from another.

Competitive Priorities

Strategic emphases that a firm places on certain performance measures and operational capabilities within a value chain (cost, quality, time, flexibility, innovation).

Corporate Strategy

Strategy defining businesses in which corporations participate and developing plans for acquisition and allocation of resources among strategic business units (SBUs).

Business Strategy

Strategy helping make decisions about competitive priorities that SBUs need to pursue to gain a competitive advantage.

Functional Strategy

Set of decisions that each functional area develops to support its particular business strategy.

Operations Strategy

Set of decisions made across value chains that supports implementation of higher-level business strategies.

Hard Technology

Equipment and devices that perform a variety of tasks in the creation and delivery of goods and services.

Soft Technology

Application of the internet, computer software, and information systems to facilitate the creation and delivery of goods and services.

Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Systems (CIMs)

Union of hardware, software, database management, and communications to automate and control production activities.

Numerical Control (NC) Machine Tools

Programmable devices that help duplicate a machinist's skills by controlling the movements of tool used to make complex shapes.

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS)

Two or more computer-controlled machines linked by automated handling devices where computers direct overall sequence of operations, select tools, and route work.

Scalability

Measure of the contribution margin required to deliver a good or service as the business grows and volume increases.

Contribution Margin

Revenue minus variable costs.

High Scalability

Capability to serve additional customers at extremely low incremental costs.

Infinite Scalability

Capability to serve additional customers at zero incremental costs.

Low Scalability

Condition involving high incremental variable costs with serving additional customers.

Decision Analysis

Formal study of how people make decisions.

Temperature-Controlled Warehouses

Specialized facilities requiring insulation, refrigeration systems, rapid-close doors, dense storage systems, and specialized equipment for cold environments.

Dangerous Goods Warehouses

Specialized facilities requiring segregated zones, restricted access, specialized fire suppression and ventilation, protective equipment, and compliance with hazard regulations.

Warehouse Management System (WMS)

Information system that tracks inventory, controls workflows, manages labor, and integrates with ERP and transportation systems.