Why is a decision tree appropriate for making decisions under risk?
> Discuss the overlap amongst operations, marketing, and finance—the three functions basic to all organizations—for small and medium enterprises.
> Find statements of sustainability for a well-known company online and analyse that firm’s policy.
> How can the voice of the customer be incorporated in the design of products and services?
> What type of forecasting method would you recommend to a start-up retailer in terms of quantity, number of products, etc.? Would you use the same method after, say, 5 years of operation? Explain.
> While numerous trade-offs may be required during the life cycle of a project, the trade-offs between cost, time, and performance are considered essential. Discuss.
> The reasons for failure in productivity are cost reduction programs, which produce narrowness of vision. We must first let go of old-fashioned productivity as a goal: instead, we must set a new but powerful objective of competitiveness” (Skinner, 1986).
> What are the ethical dilemmas that project managers are faced with when dealing with projects?
> What is concurrent engineering and why is it adopted by companies?
> What is a project and why is it important is to understand the project environment?
> Founded in 1989, Arnold Palmer Hospital is one of the largest hospitals for women and children in the U.S., with 431 beds in two facilities totalling 676,000 square feet. Located in downtown Orlando, Florida, and named after its famed golf benefactor, th
> Frito-Lay, the massive Dallas-based subsidiary of PepsiCo, has 55 plants and 55,000 employees in North America. Seven of Frito-Lay’s 41 brands exceed $1 billion in sales: Fritos, Lay’s, Cheetos, Ruffles, Tostitos, Doritos, and Walker’s Potato Chips. Oper
> Describe the three paths of data mining.
> Consider Example G1. Think of three additional items for which the manager might want to check to ensure that the data are clean. Data from Example G1: Use of Conditional Formatting for Cleaning Data Vicky Luo, analytics manager for Thompson Industries,
> Describe the purpose of a heat map.
> What are some ways to use Excel to clean data?
> Describe the three major issues for data management and clean data.
> Describe the three categories of business analytics.
> What techniques can a firm use to move to a steeper learning curve?
> Explain the concept of the doubling effect in learning curves.
> What are the elements that can disrupt the learning curve?
> Why isn’t the learning-curve concept as applicable in a high-volume assembly line as it is in most other human activities?
> The popularity of Southwestern University’s football program under its new coach Phil Flamm surged in each of the 5 years since his arrival at the Stephenville, Texas, college. With a football stadium close to maxing out at 54,000 seats
> Refer to Example E2. What are the implications for Great Lakes, Inc., if the engineering department wants to change the engine in the third and subsequent tugboats that the firm purchases? Data from Example E2:
> What are the approaches to solving learning-curve problems?
> Identify three applications of the learning curve.
> What are some of the limitations of learning curves?
> What is meant by an unbalanced transportation problem, and how would you balance it?
> Develop a northeast-corner rule and explain how it would work. Set up an initial solution for the Arizona Plumbing problem analysed in Example C1. Data from Example C1: The Northwest-Corner Rule: Arizona Plumbing wants to use the northwest-corner rule t
> All of the transportation examples appear to apply to long distances. Is it possible for the transportation model to apply on a much smaller scale, for example, within the departments of a store or the offices of a building? Discuss.
> The more sources and destinations there are for a transportation problem, the smaller the percentage of all cells that will be used in the optimal solution. Explain.
> Which starting technique generally gives a better initial solution, and why?
> How do you know when an optimal solution has been reached?
> Celebrity Cruises, with its reputation as a leader in the “premium cruise” industry, decided in 2013 to become an industry leader in environmental sustainability as well. Celebrity’s “Save The Waves” program was initially set up to increase compliance wi
> Identify the three “steps” in the northwest-corner rule.
> What are the steps in the intuitive lowest-cost method?
> Explain what is meant by the term degeneracy within the context of transportation modelling.
> How can the transportation method address production costs in addition to transportation costs?
> Explain the significance of a negative improvement index in a transportation-minimizing problem.
> How many occupied cells must all solutions use?
> What are the three information needs of the transportation model?
> Describe how and when making a decision tree will make you do the right decisions.
> What is the expected value with perfect information (EVwPI)?
> What is the expected value of perfect information (EVPI)?
> Frito-Lay, the multi-billion-dollar snack food giant, requires vast amounts of water, electricity, natural gas, and fuel to produce its 41 well-known brands. In keeping with growing environmental concerns, Frito-Lay has initiated ambitious plans to produ
> Explain how decision trees might be used in several of the 10 OM decisions.
> What is a decision tree?
> Discuss the differences between decision making under certainty, under risk, and under uncertainty.
> What is the equally likely decision model?
> Give an example of a good decision you made that resulted in a bad outcome. Also give an example of a bad decision you made that had a good outcome. Why was each decision good or bad?
> Describe a case where a decision tree will not be the optimal model for decisions.
> Why are the maximax and maximin strategies considered to be optimistic and pessimistic, respectively?
> Identify the six steps in the decision process.
> During an argument as to the merits of preventive maintenance at Windsor Printers, the company owner asked, “Why fix it before it breaks?” How would you, as the director of maintenance, respond?
> When the Amway Centre opened in Orlando in 2011, it became the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold-certified professional basketball arena in the country. It took 10 years for Orlando Magic’s management to develop a plan for t
> What roles can computerize maintenance management systems play in the maintenance function?
> How does machine design contribute to either increasing or alleviating the maintenance problem?
> How can a manager evaluate the effectiveness of the maintenance function?
> What is the trade-off between operator-performed maintenance versus supplier-performed maintenance?
> How could simulation be a useful technique for maintenance problems?
> Explain the notion of “infant mortality” in the context of product reliability.
> How does one identify a candidate for preventive maintenance?
> Will preventive maintenance eliminate all breakdowns?
> What is the objective of maintenance and reliability?
> Discuss how the Japanese word for card has application in the study of JIT.
> Cruising is a growth industry, expanding by 6% to 7% annually for the past 30 years. Recognizing this growth opportunity, Celebrity Cruises, Inc., has enlarged its offerings in the premium “upscale experience at an intelligent price” segment of the indus
> What are the characteristics of supplier partnerships with respect to suppliers?
> What is kaizen, and what is a kaizen event?
> What are three ways in which Lean and quality are related?
> JIT attempts to remove delays, which do not add value. How, then, does JIT cope with weather and its impact on crop harvest and transportation times?
> What is level scheduling?
> What is TPS?
> What is JIT?
> Which Lean techniques work in both the manufacturing and service sectors?
> Does Lean production work in the service sector? Provide an example.
> Standardized, reusable containers have obvious benefits for shipping. What is the purpose of these devices within the plant?
> With hundreds of competitors in the boat business, Regal Marine must work to differentiate itself from the flock. As we saw in the Global Company Profile that opened this chapter, Regal continuously introduces innovative, high-quality new boats. Its diff
> What is a Lean producer?
> When is Johnson’s rule best applied in job-shop scheduling?
> Which shop-floor scheduling rule would you prefer to apply if you were the leader of the only team of experts charged with defusing several time bombs scattered throughout your building? You can see the bombs; they are of different types. You can tell ho
> Explain the terms flow time and lateness.
> What is a due date?
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of the shortest processing time (SPT) rule?
> Name five priority sequencing rules. Explain how each works to assign jobs.
> Describe what is meant by “loading” work centres. What are the two ways work centres can be loaded? What are two techniques used in loading?
> List the four criteria for determining the effectiveness of a scheduling decision. How do these criteria relate to the four criteria for sequencing decisions?
> What is input–output control?
> In the fast food industry, standardization has always been a key to success—products that taste and look the same, no matter which location you visit, builds recognition and brand loyalty. But when a brand decides to go global, standardization is not eno
> What are the advantages to finite capacity scheduling?
> What are the steps of the assignment method of linear programming?
> State the four effectiveness measures for dispatching rules.
> What is the overall objective of scheduling?
> Identify the two categories of aggregate planning strategies and explain the difference between them.
> Explain what the term disaggregation means when applied in a manufacturing environment. What is the output of this process?
> What is revenue management? Provide examples of industries where revenue management is popular.
> List and briefly discuss the four techniques used to control labour as part of aggregate planning in the service industry.
> Even if we have substantial uncertainty in the parameters in the EOQ model, it is still quite a useful model. Discuss.
> What are the advantages of cycle counting?
> With the growth of Hard Rock Cafe—from one pub in London in 1971 to more than 163 restaurants in 68 countries today— came a corporate wide demand for better forecasting. Hard Rock uses long-range forecasting in setting
> Explain why it is not necessary to include product cost (price or price times quantity) in the EOQ model, but the quantity discount model requires this information.
> Which part of the cost in the EOQ is a linear function of the order quantity?
