1. One of the reasons why operations management is so important to organizations and managers is that it plays a strategic role in an organizations competitive success.
2. The transformation process is as evident in service organizations as it is in manufacturing organizations.
3. The U.S. economy, and to a large extent the global economy, is dominated by the creation and sale of physical goods.
4. For individual organizations, increased productivity gives them a more competitive cost structure and the ability to offer more competitive prices.
5. High productivity can come solely from good people management.
6. To improve managements productivity, managers should concentrate on departmental or divisional distinctions.
7. By the late 1970s, U.S. manufacturers were able to make better quality goods less expensively than foreign companies.
VALUE CHAIN MANAGEMENT
8. Value is provided to customers through transforming raw materials and other resources into some product or service that end users need or desire when, where, and how they want it.
9. Supply chain management is internally oriented and focuses on efficient flow of incoming materials to organizations.
10. The goal of value chain management is to create a value chain strategy that meets and exceeds customers needs and desires and allows for full and seamless integration among all members of the chain.
11. Managing an organization from a value chain perspective is easy.
12. Better demand forecasting is necessary and possible because of closer ties with customers and suppliers.
13. Selected functions may need to be done collaboratively with other partners in the value chain.
14. Old measures are adequate for evaluating performance of various activities along the value chain.
15. Its important that managers outline expectations for whats involved in the organizations pursuit of value chain management.
16. The organizations hiring process must be designed to identify those employees who have the ability to learn and adapt.
17. When theres too much trust, partners in a value chain will be reluctant to share information, capabilities, and processes.
18. Managers must motivate high levels of effort from employees.
CURRENT ISSUES IN OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
19. New generations of Internet-compatible equipment contain embedded Web servers that can communicate proactively.
20. Quality problems are usually inexpensive.
21. Technology can help focus everyones attention toward some objective quality standard.
22. Courtesy is a service quality dimension that is met when the service is performed cheerfully.
23. Convenience is a product quality dimension that is met when the product is fully serviced, as required.
24. Quality improvement initiatives arent possible without having some way to monitor and evaluate their progress.
25. The latest survey of ISO 9000 certificates showed the number of registered sites worldwide to be around 50,000.
26. Gaining ISO 9000 certification provides proof that a quality operations system is in place.
27. ISO 9000 is a quality standard that establishes a goal of no more than 3.4 defects per million units or procedures.
28. The Six Sigma standards cover everything from contract review to product design to product delivery.
29. General Electric realized billions in savings through ISO 9000 from 1999-2002.
30. Sigma is the Greek letter that statisticians use to define a standard deviation from a bell curve.
Multiple-Choice Questions
For each of the following choose the answer that most completelyanswers the question