Give an example that demonstrates the trade-off inherent in projects among cost, time, and performance.
> 1. Use DEA to identify efficient and inefficient terminal operations. Formulate the problem as a linear programming model, and solve using computer software such as Excel Solver that permits input file editing between runs. 2. Using the appropriate refer
> 1. Assume that you are part of the management staff whose task is to develop this sketch plan. Using Microsoft Project, develop the PERT network as outlined above, identify the critical path, and determine the expected time to reach basic operational sta
> 1. Using Microsoft Project, prepare a network and identify the critical path activities, the expected project duration, and scheduling times for all activities. 2. The elapsed time for delivery of the hardware is estimated at 90 days. Would the project c
> Located in a major southwestern U.S. city, Elysian Cycles (EC) is a wholesale distributor of bicycles and bicycle parts. Its primary retail outlets are located in eight cities within a 400-mile radius of the distribution center. These retail outlets gene
> 1. Assuming that the cost of stock out is the lost contribution of one dessert, how many portions of Sweet Revenge should the chef prepare each weekday? 2. Based on Martin Quinn’s estimate of other stock out costs, how many servings sho
> A.D. Small, Inc., provides management consulting services from its offices located in more than 300 cities in the United States and abroad. The company recruits its staff from top graduates of recognized MBA programs. Upon joining A.D. Small, a recruit a
> Gnomial Functions, Inc. (GFI), is a medium-sized consulting firm in San Francisco that specializes in developing various forecasts of product demand, sales, consumption, or other information for its clients. To a lesser degree, it also has developed ongo
> Oak Hollow Medical Evaluation Center is a nonprofit agency offering multidisciplinary diagnostic services to study children with disabilities or developmental delays. The center can test each patient for physical, psychological, or social problems. Fees
> Computer simulation provides management an experimental laboratory in which to study a model of a real system and to determine how the system might respond to changes in policies, resource levels, or customer demand. A system, for our purposes, is define
> 1. Describe Xpresso Lube’s service package. 2. How are the distinctive characteristics of a service operation illustrated by Xpresso Lube? 3. What elements of Xpresso Lube’s location contribute to its success? 4. Given the example of Xpresso Lube, what o
> On a hillside in Rolling wood, a community just southwest of Austin, Texas, the Renaissance Clinic provides dedicated obstetric and gynecological services. The medical treatment at this facility is wrapped in an exclusive-feeling physical environment tha
> Let us revisit the Automobile Driver’s License Office Example 5.2 and model the proposed process improvement shown as Figure 5.6 (b). Recall that the improvement consisted of combining activities 1 and 4 (Review Application and Eye Test
> Renaissance Clinic is a hospital dedicated to the health care of women. It is located in the hill country surrounding Austin, Texas, and offers an environment that is unique in the city. At the time of a visit, a patient of Dr. Margaret Thompsonâ&#
> 1. During periods of bad weather, as compared with periods of clear weather, how many additional gallons of fuel on aver-age should FreeEx expect its planes to consume because of airport congestion? 2. Given FreeEx’s policy of ensuring that its planes do
> The Houston Port Authority has engaged you as a consultant to advise it on possible changes in the handling of wheat exports. At present, a crew of dockworkers using conventional belt conveyors unloads hopper cars containing wheat into cargo ships bound
> Go forth armed with clipboard and stopwatch and study an actual waiting experience (e.g., post office, fast-food restaurant, retail bank). Begin with a sketch of the layout noting the queue configuration. Describe the characteristics of the calling popul
> 1. In this chapter, we referred to Maister’s First and Second Laws of Service. How do they relate to this case? 2. What features of a good waiting process are evident in Dr. X’s practice? List the shortcomings that you see. 3. Do you think that Mrs. F is
> Thrifty Car Rental (now part of Hertz) began as a regional business in the southwest, but it now has more than 470 locations across the country and almost 600 international locations. About 80 percent of its U.S. locations are at airports, and the rest a
> 1. For the forecast period (i.e., July–December), determine the number of new trainees who must be hired at the beginning of each month so that total personnel costs for the flight-attendant staff and training program are minimized. For
> On the morning of November 10, 2002, Jon Thomas, market analyst for the Mexico leisure markets, canceled more than 300 seats “illegally” reserved on two flights to Acapulco. All of the seats on Jon’s Acapulco flights were booked by the same sales represe
> 1. How is SSM different from Deming’s PDCA cycle? 2. Prepare a cause-and-effect or fishbone diagram for a problem such as “Why customers have long waits for coffee.” Your fishbone diagram should be s
> 1. Assume that you are the assistant to the manager for operations at the FAA. Use the techniques of work shift scheduling to analyze the total workforce requirements and days-off schedule. For the primary analysis, assume that a. Operator requirements w
> River City National Bank has been in business for 10 years and is a fast-growing community bank. Its president, Gary Miller, took over his position 5 years ago in an effort to get the bank on its feet. He is one of the youngest bank presidents in the sou
> Securing a mortgage often is a time-consuming and frustrating experience for a homebuyer. The process involves multi- ple stages with many handoffs to independent organizations providing specialized services (e.g., property survey and title search). The
> 1. What features of the 7-Eleven Japan distribution system illustrate the concept of the bidirectional service supply relationship? 2. Does the 7-Eleven Japan distribution system exhibit scalability economies? 3. How does the 7-Eleven example of B2C e-co
> 1. How does the Boomer Technology Circle illustrate the concept of the bidirectional service supply relationship? 2. How has Boomer Consulting, Inc., made the client a coproduce in the service delivery process? 3. How is the concept of “
> 1. Utilizing a spreadsheet version of the Huff location model (with λ = 1.0), recommend a store size and location for AFI. Assuming that AFI does not wish to consider a store that is smaller than 10,000 square feet, assess the store sizes (b
> Joan Taylor, the administrator of Life-Time Insurance Company, which is based in Buffalo, New York, was charged with establishing a health maintenance organization (HMO) satellite clinic in Austin, Texas. The HMO concept would offer Austin residents an a
> 1. Briefly summarize the complaints and compliments in Dr. Loflin’s letter. 2. Critique the letter of Gail Pearson in reply to Dr. Loflin. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the letter? 3. Prepare an “improved” response letter from Gail Pearson. 4.
> 1. Prepare an -chart and R-chart for complaints, and plot the average complaints for each crew during the nine-month period. Do the same for the performance ratings. What does this analysis reveal about the service quality of CSI’s
> 1. Describe Village Volvo’s service package. 2. How are the distinctive characteristics of a service firm illustrated by Village Volvo? 3. How could Village Volvo manage its back office (i.e., repair operations) like a factory? 4. How can Village Volvo d
> 1. How do the environmental dimensions of the services cape explain the success of Central Market? 2. Comment on how the services cape shapes the behaviors of both customers and employees. Central Market5 The original Central Market grocery store, locat
> 1. Use CRAFT logic to develop a layout that will maximize customer time in the store. 2. What percentage increase in customer time spent in the store is achieved by the proposed layout? 3. What other consumer behavior concepts should be considered in the
> 1. Identify the bottleneck activity, and show how capacity can be increased by using only two pharmacists and two technicians. 2. In addition to savings on personnel costs, what benefits does this arrangement have? Health Maintenance Organization (B) Th
> 1. Beginning with a good initial layout, use operations sequence analysis to determine a better layout that would minimize the walking distance between different areas in the clinic. 2. Defend your final layout based on features other than minimizing wal
> 1. How has Enterprise Rent-A-Car (ERAC) defined its service differently than that of the typical national car rental company? 2. What features of its business concept allow ERAC to compete effectively with the existing national rental car companies? 3. U
> 1. Describe the service organization culture at Amy’s Ice Cream. 2. What are the personality attributes of the employees who are sought by Amy’s Ice Cream? 3. Design a personnel selection procedure for Amy’s Ice Cream using abstract questioning, a situat
> 1.How does Amazon.com illustrate the sources of service sector growth? Comment on information technology, the Internet as an enabler, innovation, and changing demographics. 2.What generic approach(s) to service design does Amazon.com illustrate, and what
> 1. Prepare a service blueprint for Commuter Cleaning. 2. What generic approach to service system design is illustrated by Commuter Cleaning, and what competitive advantages does this design offer? 3. Using the data in Table 3.5, calculate a break-eve
> 1. Describe the growth strategy of Federal Express. How did this strategy differ from those of its competitors? 2. What risks were involved in the acquisition of Tiger International? 3. In addition to the question of merging FedEx and Flying Tigers pilot
> 1. Prepare a service blueprint for the 100 Yen Sushi House operation. 2. What features of the 100 Yen Sushi House service delivery system differentiate it from the competition, and what competitive advantages do they offer? 3. How has the 100 Yen Sushi
> 1. Prepare a run chart on each of the incident categories. Does she have reason to be concerned about burglaries? What variable might you plot against burglaries to create a scatter diagram to determine a possible explanation? 2. What is unusual about th
> Conduct a Google search on “project finance” and find employment opportunities in project finance. What is the role of finance in projects?
> Could firms in the “world-class service delivery” stage of competitiveness be described as “learning organizations’?
> Discuss the difference between time variance, cost variance, and schedule variance.
> Explain why the PERT estimate of expected project duration always is optimistic. Can we get any feel for the magnitude of this bias?
> Are Gantt charts still viable project management tools? Explain.
> Illustrate the four stages of team building from your own experience.
> Identify dependent and independent demand for an airline and a hospital.
> Service capacity (i.e., seats on an aircraft) has characteristics similar to inventories. What inventory model would apply?
> How is a service level determined for most inventory items?
> How valid are the assumptions for the simple EOQ model?
> Discuss how information technology can help to create a competitive advantage through inventory management?
> Determine if the U.S. service sector currently is expanding or contracting based upon the Non-Manufacturing Index (NMI) found at ISM Report on Business on the Institute of Supply Management website: http://www.ism.ws/pubs/ismmag/.
> Compare and contrast a continuous review inventory system with a periodic review inventory system?
> How would one find values for inventory management costs?
> Discuss the functions of inventory for different organizations in the supply chain (i.e., manufacturing, suppliers, distributors, and retailers).
> What changes in (, (, and ( would you recommend to improve the performance of the trendline seasonal adjustment forecast shown in Figure 11.4? Figure 11.4: Profile of Operator Requirements and Tour Assignments Number of operators 25 20 15 10 5 0 12
> Why is the N-period moving-average model still in common use if the simple exponential smoothing model has superior qualities?
> Suggest a number of independent variables for a regression model to predict the potential sales volume of a given location for a retail store (e.g., a video rental store).
> The number of customers at a bank likely will vary by the hour of the day and by the day of the month. What are the implications of this for choosing a forecasting model?
> For each of the three forecasting methods (i.e., time series, causal, and subjective), what costs are associated with the development and use of the forecast model? What costs are associated with forecast error?
> What characteristics of service organizations make forecast accuracy important?
> Discuss how the M/G/( model could be used to determine the number of emergency medical vehicles that are required to serve a community.
> Give an example of a firm that began as world-class and has remained in that category.
> What are some disadvantages associated with the concept of pooling service resources?
> For a queuing system with a finite queue, the arrival rate can exceed the capacity to serve. Use an example to explain how this is feasible.
> Example 13.1 presents a naïve capacity planning exercise and was criticized for using averages. Recall the concept of a "bottleneck" from Chapter 5, "Supporting Facility and Process Flows," and suggest other reservations about this planning exercise.
> Discuss how one could determine the economic cost of keeping customers waiting.
> When the line becomes long at some fast-food restaurants, an employee will walk along the line taking orders. What are the benefits of this policy?
> Suggest ways that service management can influence the arrival times of customers.
> Select a bad and good waiting experience, and contrast the situations with respect to the aesthetics of the surroundings, diversions, people waiting, and attitude of servers.
> Suggest diversions that could make waiting less painful.
> Suggest some strategies for controlling the variability in service times.
> Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_Management and discuss the ethical issues associated with yield management.
> What is the value of self-service in an economy?
> Will the widespread use of yield management eventually erode the concept of fixed prices for any service?
> What possible dangers are associated with developing complementary services?
> Illustrate how a particular service has implemented strategies for managing both demand and capacity successfully.
> How can computer-based reservation systems increase service capacity utilization?
> What organizational problems can arise from the use of part-time employees?
> What explains the continuing trade surplus in services for the United States?
> What is the inherent conflict in a franchising arrangement?
> Chili’s, a United States based restaurant chain that offers Mexican food, has its largest establishment in Monterrey, Mexico. Why is Chili’s so successful in Monterrey?
> Recall that service operations can be classified as processing people, goods, or information. What challenges are faced in each category when globalization is undertaken?
> Conduct a Google search and find the definition of “location intelligence.” What use can be made of geographic information?
> For each of the three generic strategies (i.e., cost leadership, differentiation, and focus), which of the four competitive uses of information is most powerful?
> What are the benefits of using intermediaries in the service distribution channel?
> What are the characteristics of a service that would make communication a good substitute for travel?
> How would you proceed to estimate empirically the parameter "(" in the Huff retail location model for a branch bank?
> Pick a particular service and identify shortcomings of its site selection.
> Reconsider Figure 7.13 the value stream map of small business loan approval process. If the process were conducted entirely online, what value-added activities could be eliminated? What is the overall efficiency of an online process?
> Explain why the introduction of Six Sigma at 3M was blamed for stifling creativity.
> What are the limitations of "benchmarking?"
> Explain how the application of the PDCA cycle can support a competitive strategy of low cost leadership.
> Discuss why Deming’s 14-point program was rejected by U.S. firms but embraced by the Japanese following World War II.
> How can the recovery from a service failure be a blessing in disguise?
> Is it possible for an economy to be based entirely on services?
> Identify activities that compare Walmart’s vertical integration efforts with maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with suppliers.
> Why do service firms hesitate to offer a service guarantee?
