What are the reasons to use a single supplier? Is this the most efficient way to purchase materials in general?
> How are the various capacity plans (ERP, RCCP, CRP) related to the material plans (APP, MPS, MRP)?
> What is the difference between an MRP explosion and a DRP implosion?
> What is the difference between scheduled receipts and planned order releases?
> How are manufacturing and purchasing lead times considered in the MPS and the MRP?
> What are the crucial inputs for material requirements planning?
> What is the purpose of low level coding?
> Why is it important to balance production with capacity?
> What is demand forecasting?
> What roles do “collaboration” and “trust” play in the practice of supply chain management?
> What is demand management?
> West Marine identified ten performance improvement steps in their successful implementation of CPFR. Is West Marine’s approach unique or can their experience be duplicated at another company? What are the key challenges that other companies might face in
> What are three measures of forecasting accuracy?
> What are the main components of a time series?
> What are qualitative forecasting techniques? When are these methods more suitable?
> What is a common method for developing second-tier suppliers?
> Why are second- and third-tier suppliers important to the focal firm?
> What is the difference between supplier management and alliance development?
> What is sourcing’s role in value engineering, and what benefits does this give to the firm?
> What advantages do company-designed supplier certification programs have over industry certifications like ISO 9000?
> How could the supply chain members reduce total inventory and back order costs in the future?
> What are the benefits of obtaining ethical and sustainable certifications? Why would a buyer want its suppliers to have these certifications?
> What is supply base rationalization, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?
> Where do ethical and sustainable sourcing policies come from, in an organization?
> Can firms buy functional products in an ethical way? Sustainable way? What about innovative products?
> What are some common practices or activities of ethical sourcing?
> What is ethical sourcing and why do firms do it?
> What is the difference between purchasing and sourcing?
> What are the similarities and differences in capabilities of SRM software offered by i2, Oracle, and SAP?
> Why do organizations have supplier awards program?
> Research ISO’s Web site (http://www.iso.ch) and discuss the growth of ISO 9000 and 14000 certification by regions of the world such as Africa/West Asia, Central and South America, North America, Europe, Far East, and Australia/New Zealand.
> Describe and draw a supply chain for a bicycle repair shop.
> Describe the disadvantages of global sourcing and how it can adversely affect a firm’s competitiveness.
> How can global sourcing enhance a firm’s competitiveness?
> What is a carbon footprint and how can firms reduce theirs?
> It has often been pointed out that 60 percent of strategic alliances fail? What are the reasons for this?
> What are the key factors that contribute to a lasting supplier partnership?
> What does process integration mean and what does this have to do with SCM?
> Why do firms purchase from foreign suppliers? What are the risks involved in global sourcing?
> What are 3PLs and what role do they play in SCM?
> What are micro-purchases? How can they be used to improve public procurement?
> Briefly describe the terms lean and Six Sigma systems.
> What happened to the current inventory levels as we move backward, up the supply chain from retailer to manufacturer? Why?
> Describe the different types of bid bonds.
> What role do information systems play in supply chainmanagement? Give some examples.
> How can an organization manage its suppliers effectively?
> Describe how blanket orders and blanket order releases can be used to manage the procurement system of a business that owns a dozen large restaurants in a city.
> Compare and contrast the arm’s-length/adversarial and partnership approaches to the customer-supplier relationship.
> Do you think the proper way to choose a supplier is to always find the one that will give you the lowest price? When might this not be a good idea?
> You are given the following information: Costs Make Option Buy Option Fixed cost $25,000 $3,000 Variable cost $8 $12 a. Find the breakeven quantity and the total cost at the breakeven point. b. If the requirement is 4
> What factors should be considered while choosing suppliers?
> The bills of materials for two finished products (D and E), inventory status, and other relevant information are given below. Compute the planned order releases and projected on-hand inventory balances for parts D, E, and F. /
> Can a small business like a local sandwich or bicycle shop benefit from practicing supply chain management? What should they concentrate on?
> If a firm’s cost of goods sold is $2.5 million and its average inventory is $500,000, what is the inventory turnover?
> Could a firm have more than one supply chain? Explain.
> Using the formula for productivity, (outputs/inputs), what are all the ways that productivity can be increased?
> Do you think there is a relationship between performance measurement and a firm’s competitiveness and profitability? Explain.
> Which model do you think is best suited to measure supply chain performance—the Balanced Scorecard or the SCOR? Why?
> What are the five process categories of the SCOR model and which one do you think is most important?
> What is perfect order fulfillment? Cash-to-cash cycle time?
> What are demand driven supply networks and what role do performance measures play in these networks?
> If a firm’s net income (profits before taxes) is $120,000 and it has total assets of $1.5 million, what is its return on assets?
> What do you think a good labor utilization would be for a factory? A restaurant?
> How could you increase labor productivity without increasing labor utilization?
> What types of supply chains are most likely to be impacted by risk and security problems? Why?
> Why should reducing the length of the supply chain also reduce the bullwhip effect?
> Describe an incidence either personally or at work, where you have been involved in shortage gaming.
> Define the term collaborative education and explain what this has to do with supply chain management.
> How can RFID tags help to enable external process integration?
> Which should come first—internal integration or external integration? Why?
> Is it necessary to have internal performance measures for each of the supply chain business processes? Why or why not?
> What is the difference between the customer service management process and the customer relationship management process?
> Given the following production schedule, compute the available-to-promise quantities.
> Stella can handle about 10 customers per hour at her one-person comic book store. The customer arrival rate averages about 6 customers per hour. Stella is interested in knowing the operating characteristics of her single channel, single phase queuing sys
> With an average service rate of twelve customers per hour and an average customer arrival rate of ten customers per hour, calculate the probability that actual service time will be less than or equal to six minutes.
> Oana’s Cat Care needs help in her grooming business as shown below for the 5-day workweek. Determine a full and part-time workschedule for the business using the fewest number of workers. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
> What are the distribution channel alternatives for a weather service? A souvenir shop? A marriage counselor?
> If you have designed an effective queuing system, why is it still necessary to practice waiting time management on some occasions?
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of increasing the number of channels?
> What type of queuing system does a three-channel, four-phase system refer to?
> Define the terms “balking” and “reneging”. How could a firm minimize them?
> What are the primary elements to consider when designing any queuing system?
> What are the two elements managers must pay attention to, when managing queues, to maximize customer satisfaction?
> Should unit price be used as the sole criterion for selecting suppliers? Why or why not?
> Define capacity utilization. What is an ideal utilization? Can utilization ever be greater than 100 percent? Explain.
> What are the four concerns of service response logistics?
> What are the three generic strategies that services use to compete? Give examples.
> Describe the primary differences between goods and service firms.
> Why is the service sector in the U.S. and other highly developed economies growing so much more rapidly than the manufacturing sector?
> Is your university a pure service? Explain.
> Discuss Wal-Mart’s location strategy.
> What are the critical factors in making community and site decisions?
> What are the critical factors influencing facility location?
> What is the difference between green development and sustainable development?
> Can nonprofit, educational, or government organizations benefit from supply chain management? How?
> Why is China an attractive location for many businesses?
> How would an analysis of customer defections help the firm become more competitive?
> Define these terms: permission marketing, cross-selling and churn reduction.
> How does the actual practice of CRM differ from the use of CRM software?
> Why is the determination of customer lifetime value important?
> What is the difference between on-demand computing, the software-as-a-service model and cloud computing?
