Questions and Answers of Operations and Supply Chain

ISO 9000 and the Malcolm Baldrige Award competition are both programs that seek to achieve recognition for outstanding quality, one in the form of a certificate and the other in the form of an award.
Describe the general steps a company must go through to obtain ISO 9001:2015 certification.
At most universities course registration for future semesters typically involves some type of computerized online process possibly combined with some personal consultation with an academic advisor.
Visit your university infirmary and study the process inpatients follow to see a doctor and describe a quality improvement project to improve this process.
Develop a quality-improvement project in a situation you are familiar with such as a current or former job, a part-time job, a restaurant, your college bookstore, your dorm or apartment, a local
Write a brief summary on how a company relates quality management to sustainability by researching Quality Progress or the Internet.
Go to the Malcolm Baldrige Award website, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/, and write a brief report on one of the most recent years’ Baldrige Award winners similar to the “Along the Supply Chain”
Using the Internet, research the winner of an international quality award at one of the award websites and write a brief report.
Find an article from Quality Progress about a specific company’s supply chain quality and write a brief report similar to the “Along the Supply Chain” about Target’s supply chain in this
Identify a service provider that you have experienced more than normal quality problems with, list the type of quality problems you have experienced, and suggest ways to correct these problems.
K&N Management is a 2010 Malcolm Baldrige Award winner in the small business category. Compare the quality of K&N’s restaurants with a similar type of fast food restaurant you have visited
Select a product that you own (like a cell phone, tablet, laptop, auto, etc.), and a service that you have used (like a hotel, restaurant, airline, Internet site, retail store, etc.) that are rated
Write a one- to two-page summary of an article from Quality Progress about quality management in a company or organization.
Examine the annual reports of a company of your choosing over three years. Use quotes from the reports to describe the company’s overall strategy and its specific goals each year. Pay special
Ethics is easier when there are laws to fall back on. Search the Internet for information on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Briefly describe what it entails. Then fi nd two companies that
Much of the negotiation in trade agreements centers on ethical/legal issues such as intellectual property protection, bribery and payoffs, and copyright and patent infringement. Transparency
Look for articles related to supply chains online or at Fortune, Bloomberg Business-week, or CNN. How do they relate to the primary topics discussed in this chapter? If your university has access to
Find an interesting website related to the operations function in a firm with which you are familiar. Write a summary of what you find.
Read about the Smart Cities Initiative and other smart technologies. Write a thought piece on the impact of new digital technologies on business operations, supply chains, and consumers.
Select four fast-food restaurants (e.g., McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Domino’s, etc.) in your town, and develop a scoring model including decision criteria, weights, and grades to rank the
Complete the available-to-promise table below. PERIOD ON HAND = 10 2 3 Forecast 50 50 50 50 50 50 Customer Orders 56 17 75 50 16 14 Master Production Schedule 100 100 100 Available-to-Promise
Explain the difference between a single-stage approach to inventory management and a multi-echelon approach.
Of the time series models presented in this chapter, including the moving average and weighted moving average, exponential smoothing and adjusted exponential smoothing, and linear trend line, which
Using the Internet, identify the five busiest global ports according to whatever measure of port traffic or volume you choose.
Using the Internet, identify a third-party logistics (3PL) provider and describe the type of services it offers and the advantages it might provide the outsourcing company.
Discuss why you think reverse globalization may, or may not, be a long-term trend.
Using the Internet, find an article and write a report about how an actual company is achieving sustainability though improved processes in its transportation and distribution functions.
Identify three countries that you think would be possible near-shore suppliers for U.S. companies and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
Locate an international logistics provider on the Internet; describe the services it provides and identify some of its customers.
Explore the website of an enterprise resource planning provider and describe the transportation and distribution services it indicates it provides.
Select a company that has a global supply chain and describe it, including purchasing, production, distribution, and transportation.
Select a company and determine the type of suppliers it has, then indicate the criteria that you think the company might use to evaluate and select suppliers.
Identify five businesses in your community and determine what modes of transportation are used to supply them.
What green initiatives have recently been taken at your school or workplace? What additional green initiatives do you think your school should undertake? Discuss whether you think the initiatives
Identify a business that employs EDI in its supply chain management and describe how it is used.
Explore the website of an ERP provider and describe the services that it indicates it provides.
Locate an e-marketplace site on the Internet and describe it and the type of producers and suppliers it connects.
Identify three service businesses in your community and describe their supply chains.
As part of an aggressive expansion plan, StarTrack Coffee is planning to open three new retail stores in the city. The table shows the location factors it considers important indicators of future
The following businesses are considering locating in your community:a. A pizza delivery serviceb. A sporting goods storec. A small breweryd. A plant making aluminum cansDescribe the positive and
Explain economies and dis-economies of scale. Give an example of each.
Devonte Price is a self-published author finishing up his seventh book. His books are sold regionally through book fairs, conferences, and special events. He does not sell through online booksellers,
Explore the sustainability requirements of production outsourced to different parts of the world.
BusinessWeek sponsors a best design competition each year. Read about this year’s winners and write a brief summary about what makes these designs special.
Select a retail store you are familiar with such as a grocery store, J. Crew, Macy’s, Best Buy, Target, etc., and identify what might be considered as “defects” in their processes and how
Develop a Six Sigma-type quality improvement project employing the DMAIC steps for your own personal health such as losing weight, improving your diet, exercise, etc.
Identify three websites that you think are poor quality and three that are good quality. What common characteristics are exhibited by the group of poor-quality sites? the group of good-quality sites?
Cultural differences can make it difficult to do business in other countries. Go to www.worldbusinessculture.com and choose a country to explore. Share your discoveries with your professor and
The World Bank ranks countries in terms of globalization. Go to the research section of www.worldbank.org and choose four countries to compare.
Describe the global activities of a corporation of your choice. How many foreign plants or suppliers do they have? Where are they located? How much of their business is foreign? Are any global
Describe the differences among Black Belts, Green Belts, and Master Black Belts in a Six Sigma program.
Construct a perceptual map for the following products or services: (a) business schools in your state or region, (b) software packages, and (c) car rental/car sharing services. Label the axes with
The Blue Plate Special restaurant, famous for its slow-cooked stews and meats, serves one meal a day family style. Sous Chef Lisle marinates the meat, fish, and vegetables for the five different
Create a QFD example from your own experience. Describe the product or service to be designed and then complete a house of quality using representative data. Explain the entries in the house and how
Complete the following MRP matrix for item A: ITEM: A LOT SIZE: MULT 50 LT: 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 LLC: 1 PERIOD Gross Requirements 10 15 25 75 60 85 45 60 Scheduled Receipts Projected on Hand 50 Net
Tigongzhe Company is a Chinese supplier of smartphone camera parts to manufacturing companies in China that assemble smartphones. Last year it had cost of goods sold of $63.7 million and the
How do service layouts diff er from manufacturing layouts? Give an example of a well-designed service layout and an example of a poorly designed service layout.
List the elements that define a queuing system.
How would you define a service? What services blur the distinction between a product and a service?
Students often complain that the requirements of assignments or projects are unclear. From the student’s perspective, whoever can guess what the professor wants wins the highest grade. Thus, grades
What does design for manufacture entail? List several techniques that can facilitate the DFM process. How do DFM and DFSC differ?
After reviewing your report, Tech has decided to improve the checkout process through training, clearer signage about prices, and bar code stickers on the most popular items purchased. With the
The food court at Tech has a single checkout counter over the weekends staff ed by one employee who takes an average of 2 minutes to checkout a customer. Students arrive to the food court at a rate
What types of waiting line systems have constant service times?
Under what conditions will the single-channel, single-phase queuing model with Poisson arrivals and undefined service times provide the same operating characteristics as the basic model with
€œAnd do you have the answer to Problem 6, Pete?€ asked Professor Grasso.€œYes sir, I have the answer according to the textbook, but I€™m not sure I get
Price’s Fork Body Shop has four jobs queued up for work, with processing times and due dates listed below. Tremaine Thomas, the new hire, is taking classes at the local university and thought
Explain the drum-buff er-rope concept.
Tina Rossi had been preparing for her company’s first kaizen blitz and wondered if she had thought of everything. The process they had chosen to kaizen had been the subject of numerous customer
What is a poka-yoke? Give an example.
a. An estimate of the capacity to clear roads in a 12-hour period expressed in miles per type of snowfall (3 in, 6 in., 1 ft, and 2 ft or greater).b. An estimate of the total work load (in miles
Files & More (F&M), a manufacturer of office equipment, is introducing a new product, the BUNGEE desk chair, made from elastic webbing that provides both comfort and support. The materials
Alpha Corp. (a spinoff of Alpha Beta) makes Product X, which is composed of two Part Ys. Complete the following MRP matrices for X and Y, and construct a planned order report. When are orders placed
Complete the MRP matrix below, then answer the questions that follow.a. In what periods should orders be released for item D?b. What is the projected on hand at the end of period 6?c. What is the
What is PLM? How does it relate to other business software?
Care Alliance (CA), a manufacturer of emergency care kits for disaster relief, has received the annual disaster readiness plans from its major constituents and now must develop an operations plan to
Access a major vendor of business software, such as SAP or Oracle. Read about their demand management, available-to-promise, and production planning products. What kinds of capabilities do these
How are steady-state results achieved in a simulation?
Arkind is a global manufacturer and supplier of denim jeans to apparel retailers around the world. It purchases baled cotton from cotton producers in Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina and
The State University power plant burns coal to generate steam and electricity for campus buildings. It takes three days to transport coal by railroad from the coalfields, and the cost of shipping and
Compute the coefficient of determination for the data in Problem 12.34 and explain its meaning.
Arkind, an Indian company, is a global manufacturer and supplier of denim jeans to apparel retailers around the world. It purchases baled cotton around the world, ships it to its denim fabric
Global smartphone sales experienced extraordinary growth starting in 2007 with the introduction of both the iPhone and Android-platform based devices (see the Chapter Introduction). Following are the
Selecting from MAD, MAPD, MSE, E, and E, which measure of forecast accuracy do you consider superior? Why?
What advantages does adjusted exponential smoothing have over a linear trend line for forecasted demand that exhibits a trend?
How does the linear trend line forecasting model diff er from a linear regression model for forecasting?
The World Trade Organization (WTO) maintains large databases about the trade statistics of its member countries on its website. Access a “trade profile” for a country of your choosing and the
What companies that have typically been in Gartner’s annual “Supply Chain Top 25” in the past have recently dropped out, and why?
How does Gartner’s compute the scores that it uses to rank companies in its annual “Supply Chain Top 25”?
Identify some of the common characteristics among the companies in Gartner’s annual “Supply Chain Top 25.”
How do sustainability initiatives differ between a service provider and a manufacturing firm?
How are companies able to save money through their sustainability efforts?
What type of sustainability issues might a U.S. company face with a supplier in China? Mexico?
What are some of the unique sustainability challenges that a company might face in a global supply chain?
Identify and discuss the types of risk a company with a global supply chain might encounter with its overseas suppliers.
Describe how a business you are familiar with uses IT enablers in its supply chain management.
Lindsey Brinton is moving into a rental house near campus at the beginning of the new fall semester at Tech with three friends. Each of the four friends will have a bedroom that they can redecorate
Samantha and Levi Taylor are planning an anniversary party for their parents in December and they want it to have a holiday theme. They have identified the following planning activities and time
What is the purpose of a CPM/PERT network?
Select a job that you are conveniently able to observe, such as a secretary, store clerk, or custodian, and design a work sampling study for a specific job activity. Indicate how the initial estimate

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