BA339 Chapter 6 & 7, Operations and Supply Chain Management: THE CORE, F. Robert Jacobs, Richard B. Chase Questions And Answers

What are the three steps of production processes? - ANS Step 1 - Source the parts needed Step 2 - Make the product Step 3 - Deliver the product Lead time - ANS The time needed to respond to a customer order Customer order decoupling point - ANS Where inventory is positioned to allow entities in the supply chain to operate independently Lean manufacturing - ANS A means of achieving high level of customer service with minimal inventory investment What are the three types of firms? - ANS Make-to-Stock Assemble-to-Order Make-to-Order/Engineer-to-Order Make-to-Stock - ANS Serve customers "on demand" from finished goods inventory, i.e. TVs, clothing. Balance the level of inventory against the level of customer service Utilizes lean manufacturing Assemble-to-Order - ANS Combine a number of pre-assembled modules to meet a customer's specifications, i.e. customized computers Requires designs that enable flexibility Make-to-Order/Engineer-to-Order - ANS Make the customer's product from raw materials, parts, and components and work with customer to design and then make the product. Boeing's aircrafts How is production process mapping useful? - ANS In understanding how material flows and where inventory is held along the supply chain. Little's Law - ANS Inventory = Throughput rate x Flow time Throughput rate - ANS Long term average rate of slow through the process Flow time - ANS Time for a single unit to traverse the entire process Inventory - ANS Materials held by the firm for future use Project (in regard to Organization of Production Processes) - ANS The product remains in a fixed location, equipment is moved to the product Low product standardization Low product volume Workcenter (job shop) - ANS Similar equipment or functions are grouped together Semi-low product standardization Semi-low product volume Manufacturing cell - ANS A dedicated area where products that are similar in processing requirements are produced Mid-level product standardization Mid-level product volume Assembly line - ANS Work processes are arranged according to the progressive steps by which the product is made Semi-high product standardization Semi-high product volume Continuous process - ANS Assembly line, only the flow is continuous such as with liquids High product standardization High product volume Regrouped machines - ANS Dissimilar machines grouped together by product rather than similar machine design/purpose Workstation cycle time - ANS A uniform time interval in which a moving conveyor passes a series of workstations Also the time between successive units coming off the line Assembly-line balancing - ANS Assigning tasks to a series of workstations so that the required cycle time is met and idle time is minimized Precedence relationship - ANS The order in which tasks must be performed in an assembly line How can you reduce task time requirements? - ANS -Split the task -Share the task -Use parallel workstations -Use a more skilled worker -Work overtime -Redesign Service package - ANS The bundle of goods and services that is offered What are the five features of a bundle? - ANS -Supporting facility -Facilitating goods -Information -Explicit services -Implicit services Supporting facility - ANS The physical resources such as buildings, equipment, etc. Facilitating goods - ANS Materials purchased by the consumer or provided by the customer Information - ANS Data that is provided by the customer to enable efficient and customized service Explicit services - ANS The benefits that are readily observable and which make up the essential features of the service Implicit services - ANS Psychological benefits or other extrinsic features of the service (prestige, privacy, etc.) How are service organizations classified? - ANS They are classified according to the customers they service and the service they provide to those customers Customer contact - ANS The physical presence of the customer in the system Service systems with a high degree of customer contact are more difficult to control Creation of the service - ANS The work process involved in providing the service itself What is the dominant issue in service organization design? - ANS Capacity. Too much capacity leads to excessive costs Insufficient capacity leads to lost customers Pure virtual customer contact - ANS Companies enable customers to interact with one another eBay