EMAN 3310 Exam 1

Operations and Production Management, Chapters 1-4

Service often requires relatively greater labor content when compared to manufacturing

True

Lean production systems incorporate the advantages of both mass production and craft production

True

The optimal solutions produced by quantitative techniques should always be evaluated in terms of the larger framework

True

As an abstraction of reality, a model is a simplified version of a real phenomenon

True

Assembly lines improved productivity by using interchangable parts and craft production

False

Operations managers, who usually use quantitative approaches, are not really concerned with ethical decision making

False

A systems approach emphasizes interrelationships among subsystems, but its main theme is that the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts

True

Many operations management decisions can be described as trade-offs

True

A systems approach means that we concentrate on efficiency within a subsystem and thereby assure overall efficiency

False

Buying goods or services instead of producing or providing them in-house is called

outsourcing

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

recognition of priorities

Some companies attempt to maximize the revenue they receive from fixed operating capacity by influencing demands through price manipulation. This is an example of

revenue management

The responsibilities of the operations manager include

the creation of goods or provision of services

Which of the following would tend to increase the importance of supply chain management?

increased globalization

Business organizations consist of three major functional areas, which ideally

support one another

Which of the following does not relate to system design?

inventory management

Managing the supply chain has become more important as a result of firms increasing their levels of

outsourcing

Which of the following is a system in which low-skilled workers use specialized equipment to produce high volumes of standardized goods?

mass production

Which of the following does not relate to system design?

inventory management

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

An example of a tactical operations management decision is determining employment levels

True

Competitiveness relates to the profitability of an organization in the marketplace

False

Tracking productivity measures over time enables managers to judge organizational performance and decide where improvements are needed

True

An organization that is twice as productive as its competitor will be twice as profitable

False

Wage and salary increases that are not accompanied by productivity increases tend to exert inflationary pressures on a nation’s economy

True

Global competition really only applies to multinational organizations

False

The hierarchy and sequence of planning and decision making is: mission, organizational strategy, tactics, and operational decisions

True

Strategy includes both organizational and functional strategies

True

Improving efficiency will guarantee a similar improvement in productivity

False

Traditional strategies of business organizations have tended to emphasize cost minimization or product differentiation

True

Scheduling personnel is an example of an operations management:

operational decision

Which of the following is not a factor that affects productivity?

product price

For an organization to grow its market share, it must:

exceed minimum standards of acceptability for its products or services

The ratio of good output to quantity of raw material input is called

process yield

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

worthwhile

With regard to operations, organization strategy should, ideally, take into account:

operations’ strengths and weaknesses

Which of the following is not typically considered a cure for poor competitiveness?

minimize attention to the operations function

Which of the following is not a key factor of competitiveness?

size of organization

Years ago in the overnight delivery business, providing package tracking capability gave some firms a competitive advantage. Now, all firms must offer this capability simply to be in this line of business. This is an example of __________ becoming __________ over time.

order winners; order qualifiers

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

price

For new products in a strong growth mode, a low alpha will minimize forecast errors when using exponential smoothing techniques

False

Organizations that are capable of responding quickly to changing requirements can use a shorter forecast horizon and therefore benefit from more accurate forecasts

True

The purpose of the forecast should be established first so that the level of detail, amount of resources, and accuracy level can be understood

True

Time-series techniques involve the identification of explanatory variables that can be used to predict future demand

False

A moving average forecast tends to be more responsive to changes in the data series when more data points are included in the average

False

Trend-adjusted exponential smoothing requires selection of two smoothing constants

True

The sample standard deviation of forecast error is estimated by the square root of MSE

True

Correlation measures the strength and direction of a relationship between variables

True

Seasonal relatives can be used to deseasonalize data or incorporate seasonality in a forecast

True

The best forecast is not necessarily the most accurate

True

Which of the following is not a step in the forecasting process?

eliminate all assumptions

Which phrase most closely describes the Delphi technique?

series of questionnaires

Using the latest observation in a sequence of data to forecast the next period is

a naive forecast

Which is not a characteristic of simple moving averages applies to time series data?

requires only last period’s forecast and actual data

Which of the following smoothing constants would make an exponential smoothing forecast equivalent to a naive forecast?

1.0

A persistent tendency for forecasts to be greater than or less than the actual values is called

bias

The two most important factors in choosing a forecasting technique are

cost and accuracy

Customer service levels can be improved by better

short-term forecast accuracy

Accuracy in forecasting can be measured by

MSE

Which forecast uses opinions gathered from consumer surveys, managers, sales staff, experts, and executives?

judgmental

Global teams provide diversity while eliminating conflicts and miscommunication

False

Concurrent engineering is another term for sequential development

False

Modular design increases the costs of purchasing and controlling inventory compared to nonmodular

False

Product failures can be easier to remedy with modular design

True

The process of dismantling and inspecting a competitor’s product to discover product improvement is called benchmarking

False

Companies wanting to do business in the European Union must not sell products that contain recycled materials

False

Research and development (R&D) refers to organized efforts that are directed toward increasing scientific knowledge and product (or process) innovation

True

Robust design describes a product that will perform satisfactorily so long as it is used in a very narrow range of consitions

False

Quality function deployment (QFD) is based on a set of standards which relate customer requirements to company capabilities

True

Reliability can be improved by the use of backup components

True

Which of the following is not of the 3 Rs?

reposition

The research and development activity that starts after positive applied research results are available and attempts to turn these results into useful commercial applications is

developmentOne

One possible disadvantage of modular design is that

the number of configurations if modules decreases

The process of dismantling and inspecting a competitor’s new or revised product for the purpose of gleaning design ideas is called

reverse engineering

One structured approach for integrating customer requirements into every aspect of product development is

quality function deployment

Making plans for how products that have reached the end of their useful lives will be dealt with is the primary subject of

end-of-life programs

Which of the following is not one of the phases of product design and development?

perform applied research

Elements of the service process in which there is no contact with the customer are referred to as

back-of-the-house

Which of the following are not part of the activities and responsibilities of product and service design?

development organizational strategy

Which of the following is not true about remanufactoring?

it produces high-quality products easily