Exam 13: Aggregate Planning

The objective of aggregate planning is to meet demand while ________ over the planning period.

Describe the advantages and limitations of the graphical method of aggregate planning.

Disaggregation is the process of breaking the aggregate plan into greater detail; one example of this detail is the Master Production Schedule.

How does "yield management" impact the aggregate plan?

Controlling the cost of labour in services involves quick response to consumer demand, on-call labour for unexpected demand, flexibility of labour for reallocation, and flexibility of hours or rate of output of individual workers.

One motive for using demand-influencing aggregate planning options is to create uses for excess capacity within an organization.

What conditions make yield management of interest?

Describe the advantages and limitations of the transportation method for aggregate planning.

The ________ strategy maintains a constant output rate, or workforce level, over the planning horizon.

Which of the following attempts to manipulate product or service demand?

A train company is considering applying yield management principles to its ticket sales. Suppose that there is no variable cost in the operation, only a fixed cost to run each train. The company decides that a student ticket will sell for half the cost of a business ticket. If demand for the business tickets is given by 50 - 3x where x is the sales price of a business ticket and demand for student tickets is given by 70 - y² where y is the price of a student ticket how much should the company charge for tickets to maximize revenue?

Identify some mathematical approaches to aggregate planning. Which are optimizing? Which are heuristic?

The level scheduling strategy allows lower inventories than the pure chase strategy.

Which of the following aggregate planning strategies is known to lower employee morale?

"An optimal plan for minimizing the cost of allocating capacity to meet demand over several planning periods" best describes

One of the demand options of aggregate planning is to vary the workforce by hiring or layoffs.

The typical time horizon for aggregate planning is

A hotel chain is considering using yield management to increase profits. Its plan is to sell unsold rooms at a discounted rate very close to the night of stay. For example, an unsold Friday night room would be discounted early in the week. It estimates that the percentage of sold rooms (total) would be equal to 50 + X, where X is the % discounted off of regular price. Meanwhile the % of rooms sold for full price compared to the discount would be 100 - 2X (some people would wait to book gambling a discount would happen). Find the ideal discount %.

A firm uses the pure chase strategy of aggregate planning. It produced 800 units in the last period. Demand in the next period is estimated at 1400, and demand over the next six periods (its aggregate planning horizon) is estimated to average 1100 units. In following the chase strategy, the firm will?

A small private university normally charges the same price-$200-per credit-hour for all courses and for all students. While the university is pretty near capacity in the fall and spring, it finds that its classrooms are only about 60% occupied during the summer session. A student of operations management (who has recently read this chapter) wonders if yield management might be useful to both the university and its students alike. This student, with help from some economics majors, estimates a demand curve for summer course enrollment. Points on this demand curve include 9000 credit-hours at the current rate of $200, 12,000 credit hours at $180, 15,000 credit-hours at $160, and 18,000 credit-hours at $140. Based on this demand curve, what price point would best serve the university, if its objective is the greatest revenue for the summer session?