Chapter 13—Resource ManagementWHAT IS OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

1. One of the reasons why operations
management is so important to organizations and managers is that it plays a
strategic role in an organization’s 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 management’s
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. It’s important that managers outline expectations for what’s
involved in the organization’s pursuit of value chain management.

16. The organization’s hiring process must be designed to identify those
employees who have the ability to learn and adapt.

17. When there’s 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
everyone’s 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
aren’t 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