Exam 11: The Conversion Business Process

Which of the following is a query that could be answered by examining a Fulfillment relationship in the conversion cycle?

A Raw Materials Requisition event in a conversion process modeled using the REA enterprise ontology is what kind of event?

What is the economic increment event in the conversion process called?

A Material Issuance is an economic decrement event in the conversion cycle.

Given the following narrative description for Lydia's Purple Cloth Factory: a. Create a business process level REA model in either grammar or diagram format, for the following business process. Be sure to include all relevant entities, relationships, attributes, and cardinalities (minimum and maximum). b. Convert your business process level model into a set of minimal relational database tables. Be sure to identify primary and foreign keys in the relational tables. Lydia's Purple Cloth Factory (LPCF) produces fabric in many different textures and patterns, all in various shades of purple. Raw materials, employee labor, and machines are used in the production process. Raw materials include various types of threads and dyes, along with assorted chemicals and detergents. Employees are hired to meet the skill requirements of various labor types. Each machine is specifically identified. LPCF uses bills of materials and operations lists to document which raw materials and labor types are needed to produce each type of purple fabric, therefore the database must capture the information needed to produce these documents. As a need for a fabric type is identified, a production supervisor orders production and issues a signle requisition for the necessary raw materials, labor types, and machinery. LPCF never combines multiple fabric types on the same production order or production run; however, multiple materials, labor types, and machines are often needed to produce a single fabric type. When all requisitioned inputs are available, the raw materials are issued and the labor operations and machine operations are completed in a production run. Production employees perform the labor operations (one employee and one labor type per operation) under the watchful eye of a production supervisor; the machine operations are fully automated with one machine per operation, so they require only a production supervisor's attention. Raw material issuances are accomplished by inventory clerks and are authorized by production supervisors (one clerk and one supervisor per issuance). LPCF does not directly assign production supervisors to production employees; the supervisor position simply designates responsibility for all events and other activities associated with a production run. The following attributes must be accounted for in your model.

Because most firms produce very different goods and services, and have many different types of production processes, there is no robust conceptual modeling pattern for the conversion cycle.

Labor Operations in the Conversion cycle are economic increment events that represent increases of Labor resource types.

Job time tickets or time track forms are often used to document labor operations in the conversion cycle.

What does a conversion process that feeds yarn into a knitting machine to produce blankets have in common with a conversion process that uses automated spray stations to paint cars?

Which entities typically participate in a duality relationship in the conversion cycle?

For cost assignment purposes, continuous processes include natural starting and ending points, whereas batch processes require the use of artificial starting and ending points.

One Reservation relationship in the conversion cycle links a production order to a finished good to indicate which finished goods will be produced in a future production run; another Reservation relationship in the conversion cycle links a material requisition to a raw material to indicate which materials will be used up in a future issuance event.

To get the information needed to produce a bill of materials, one should focus on the Reservation relationship between Finished Goods and the Production Order event in the conversion cycle.

What documents in the conversion cycle capture the same information as the Linkage relationships?

The average length of all machine operations during a specific time period is an example of a conversion cycle event query.

In which cycle does duality represent a transformation of one or more resources into another resource, as opposed to a transfer of one or more resources for another resource?

Which conversion cycle event represents the using up of one or more labor type resources?

Which of the following attributes is LEAST likely to be assigned to the Raw Materials Inventory entity in a conversion cycle business process level REA model?

Because the conversion cycle usually involves no resource exchanges with external business partners, it usually falls within the enterprise circle of the value system level diagram.

Which relationship in the conversion cycle contains information that is often captured on operations lists?