Exam 2: Operations and Supply Chain Strategies

Describe the four generic performance dimensions of operations and supply chain activities.

Performance dimensions on which customers expect a minimum level of performance are called:

The phrase "closing the loop" means that strengths and weaknesses,as well as core competencies,are fed back into the mission statement.

The ________ explains why an organization exists.

Darrell and Dave were fierce competitors,which drove both of them to overpay for many of their inputs,resulting in increased prices at their own stores.Dave realized this,and pondered how he could be recognized as a cost leader by his customers and maintain his reputation for quality merchandise.Sacrificing one element of his strategy at the expense of another is recognized as a trade-off in operations management.

Structural elements of a business include:

Define and describe the differences between structural and infrastructural elements of a business.

You decide to open a bookstore with a wide selection,comfortable seating,and internal coffee shop because it has worked very well for other bookstores you have visited.Your strategy could be described as externally neutral.

Saba listened in disbelief as the customer service representative droned on,concluding with,"Your cable installer will perform the installation between 8 a.m.and 4 p.m.on the day you have requested." He knew he would have to take the day off to accommodate the service provider's ridiculously wide ________,so he began to think of undetectable diseases he might come down with that day.

The operations and supply chain strategy wasn't aligned with the business strategy nor the mission,so management could only hope to minimize the damage the operations function caused.This ________ stage was targeted for improvement next year.

________ is an example of an infrastructural element.

The American-made car I purchased as a starving graduate student was not the sleek,high-performance machine that full professors park in faculty parking,but it performed admirably.For the next twenty years I could count on one thing;every morning it would start when I turned the key.This vehicle had outstanding ________ quality.

Define mission statement and business strategy and describe the relationship between the two.

If a logistics firm consistently makes deliveries within the agreed upon delivery window,they are exhibiting delivery reliability.

A mechanism that identifies a firm's targeted customers and sets time frames and performance objectives for the business is called a mission statement.

Your employer prepares a request for proposal that describes in vivid detail all of the capabilities that a new computer system should possess.Software vendors with products that meet this request for proposal can be described as order qualifiers.

Modelo,S.A. ,is considering three providers of automated visual inspection systems for their packaging needs.A team of manufacturing engineers,production managers,and process engineers has developed the following list of criteria and assigned them ratings on a scale of 1 (completely unimportant)to 5 (critical).This team has also rated the candidate products on each of these dimensions using a scale of 1 (poor)to 5 (excellent).Which provider should they choose,and what caveats,if any,should go with their recommendation?