Select a service activity with which you are familiar. If you were the manager of this activity, what “conformance to specifications” criteria would you use to monitor it?
> The consumer loan division of a major bank wants to determine the size of the staff it would need to process up to 200 loan applications per day. It estimated that each loan officer can process a loan application in approximately 20 minutes and works sev
> Why are appointment systems used? What decisions are necessary to design an appointment system?
> What are the four major decisions made by staff scheduling?
> Explain how scheduling affects customer service and costs. Provide an example.
> How do you think that quality management concepts can support sustainability efforts? Find some sources or examples to support your beliefs.
> What are the objectives of vehicle routing and scheduling?
> Why must schedules be closely monitored and often revised?
> What is a Gantt chart and why is it important?
> Define scheduling and sequencing. Provide examples from your experiences.
> Explain the concept of dependent demand.
> What is materials requirements planning? Of what value is it to organizations?
> What is a master production schedule? How does it differ from a final assembly schedule? Explain how one is constructed.
> Hickory Manufacturing Company forecasts the following demand for a product (in thousands of units) over the next five years. Currently the manufacturer has seven machines that operate on a two-shift (eight hours each) basis. Twenty days per year are avai
> Explain practical applications of optimization models for resource management.
> Describe how to evaluate level production and chase demand strategies for aggregate planning.
> Conduct some research on quality practices that is focused on a particular country or global region. Summarize your findings in a two- to three-page report.
> Explain options for aggregate planning.
> Describe the overall frameworks for resource planning in both goods-producing and service- providing organizations.
> What is aggregate planning? Why is it used?
> Explain the concept and application of capacity requirements planning.
> Explain the pros and cons for LFL, FOQ, and POQ lot sizing methods.
> Describe ways to disaggregate aggregate plans using master production scheduling and material requirements planning.
> Explain the concepts of time phasing and MRP explosion.
> Define end-item, parent item, component parts, and subassembly. Identify these items in a bill of material.
> Baker Manufacturing Company forecasts the following demand for a product (in thousands of units) over the next five years. Currently the manufacturer has eight machines that operate on a two-shift (eight hours each) basis. Twenty days per year are availa
> What is a bill of materials? Sketch a small example. What is the analogy of the BOM in services?
> Examine the annual reports of one company over a period of years. Summarize how quality is dis- cussed or implied in the company’s statements and philosophy. Are any changes in the perspectives of quality evident over time?
> Define resource management and explain its objectives and the effects of poor resource management in the value chain.
> Explain the bullwhip effect in supply chains.
> What is vendor-managed inventory?
> Cite and explain one advantage and one disadvantage of each of the following transportation modes: air, rail, truck, ships and barges, and pipelines.
> List the activities associated with logistics.
> Explain supply chain and value chain integration.
> What are the three key principles that should be used in working with suppliers?
> Explain the role of the purchasing function.
> Explain the SCOR model. Why is it useful in managing supply chains?
> An order fulfillment process normally operates two shifts a day, six days per week. Under ideal conditions, 380 orders can be processed per shift. What is the weekly theoretical capacity?
> Develop a portfolio of advertisements from the Internet, newspapers, and magazines, and illustrate how quality is used in promoting these products.
> List some products in your personal or family “inventory.” How do you manage them? (For instance, do you constantly run to the store for milk after it is gone? Do you throw out a lot of milk because of spoilage?) How might the ideas in this chapter chang
> The Hudson Jewelers case study found in MindTap integrates material found in each chapter of this book. Case Questions for Discussion: 1. Define and draw the customer benefit package and state Hudson Jewelers’s strategy; rank order its competitive priori
> Describe how organizations are incorporating sustainability issues in managing their supply chains, and explain how manufactured goods recovery and reverse logistics work.
> What is a certified supplier? Why is supplier certification important?
> Describe the components of cash-to-cash conversion cycle analyses. What are the implications of positive and negative cash flows?
> List and describe the important metrics used in supply chain performance and be able to evaluate total supply chain costs.
> Describe how e-commerce has changed the role of supply chains.
> Describe the types of risks supply chains face and ways to mitigate them.
> What is supply chain management? How does it differ from logistics?.
> Define lead time. What factors affect lead time?
> Explain the difference between independent and dependent demand, deterministic and stochastic demand, and static and dynamic demand. Provide an example of an inventory item for each combination of these demand types (e.g., independent, stochastic, and st
> What is a SKU? Provide some examples in both goods and services.
> What is the tracking signal for the end of period 39 when actual demand is 800 units and the forecast is 700 units in period 39. The algebraic sum of the forecast errors at the end of period 38 was -111 units. Assume that MAD is computed at the end of pe
> How does order cost differ from setup cost?
> Define and explain the different types of inventory costs that managers must consider in making replenishment decisions. How can these costs be determined in practice?
> Define environmentally preferable purchasing or green purchasing.
> How does inventory affect a firm’s financial performance?
> Provide three examples of where the single period model would apply in practice.
> Describe how to apply the single period inventory model.
> Explain how a fixed-period inventory system operates.
> Explain how a fixed-order-quantity inventory sys- tem operates and how to use the EOQ and safety stock models.
> A top Ford executive stated “You can’t have great value unless you have great quality.” Comment on this statement. Do you agree? Why or why not?
> Explain the importance of inventory, types of inventories, and key decisions and costs.
> Define service level. Why is it not necessarily desirable to attempt to attain a 100-percent service level?
> Ham’s Used Cars sells cars with an upward trend based on time and the degree of bad weather. Weather is scored with 1 being bad weather and 5 being great weather. Using the following multiple regression model, Sales (units of used cars) = 0.92 + 0.44*Wee
> How are optimal lot sizes for a quantity discount model computed?
> Discuss the sensitivity of the EOQ model’s optimal solution to changes in the model parameters. Why is this important?
> Explain how the total annual inventory cost is expressed in the EOQ model.
> What is the EOQ model? What assumptions are necessary to apply it? How do these assumptions change the nature of the cycle inventory pattern graphically?
> Define cycle inventory and explain how it is computed.
> Define inventory position. Why is inventory position used to trigger orders in a FQS rather than the actual stock level?
> Describe how to conduct an ABC inventory analysis. ABC analysis consists of categorizing inventory items or SKUs into three groups according to their total annual dollar usage.
> Discuss how either good or poor quality affects you personally as a consumer. For instance, describe experiences in which your expectations were met, exceeded, or not met when you purchased goods or services. Did your experience change your regard for th
> Describe the major characteristics that impact inventory decisions.
> Describe the two different types of stockouts that firms often face. What must be done to prevent them?
> Define inventory and provide some examples.
> A linear regression model is Units = 3,014 – 0.639*Week. For week 38, what is the forecast for the number of units?
> Describe common queueing configurations.
> What does a queueing system consist of?
> What is a queue, and why is it important to under- stand it?
> Explain Little’s Law and illustrate how it can be used by providing a numerical example.
> Define flow time.
> What are some ways to improve throughput in a process?
> Find two examples similar to the introductory example in this chapter that describe the economic consequences of poor quality.
> What is a bottleneck? Explain why is it important.
> What is throughput and how is it measured?
> What are the basic principles of the Theory of Constraints (TOC)? How do these principles impact costs?
> What are the advantages of using simulation to analyze queueing models?
> A small airplane company called Just In Time flies between cities in Florida. It is trying to decide whether to add one extra plane to its fleet next year. Passenger demand that last four quarters are as follows: Q1 = 4,403, Q2 = 4,008, Q3 = 3,750, and Q
> How can economic analysis be used in making queueing system design decisions?
> List the characteristics and assumptions of a multiple server queueing model.
> List the characteristics and assumptions of a single server queueing model.
> What is queueing theory? Summarize the performance measures that are computed in queueing models.
> Define utilization and explain two ways computing resource utilization.
> Do an Internet search of “vehicle-routing software” and “vehicle routing.” Write a two-page report of the capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages of these vehicle-routing and dispatching systems. Provide one or two examples of real-world applications
> How are total time, setup time, and processing time related?
> What is setup time? Why is it important in determining capacity?
> Define a work order and provide examples in goods-producing and service-providing industries.
> Explain how safety capacity and planned capacity are related.
> Why is safety capacity important? Provide some examples of safety capacity in manufacturing and service organizations.
> Exotic Wines, Inc. wants to use exponential smoothing with = 0.25 to forecast demand in bottles sold. The demand the last four months are 2,321, 3,097, 2,845, and 3,812 bottles. The forecast for bottles was 2,321 bottles for the second month. What is t
> Summarize the different ways in which capacity can be measured.
