Exam 2: Operations and Supply Chain Strategies

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

What is a trade-off ? Offer a definition and provide an example.

Before firms can think about progressing to the fourth stage of alignment (________), they must develop ________ within the operations and supply chain areas.

Tangible resources are infrastructural elements in an organization.

Which type of flexibility would be the most difficult to achieve for a two-chair barbershop?

In the internally supportive stage of business strategy alignment, management merely attempts to minimize negative potential in the operations and supply chain area.

Before firms can progress to the fourth stage of alignment, they must not only support business strategies but also:

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

Conformance quality addresses whether the product was made or the service performed to specifications.

As long as each functional area in a company operates efficiently, their strategies can be very different.

The externally supportive stage of alignment is more desirable than the externally neutral stage of alignment.

Volume flexibility is the term used to describe the ability of a producer to produce a dazzling (wide)array of products or services.

Four engineering firms completed the request for proposal to develop something called the Arpanet, but the firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman demonstrated a camaraderie and tighter team concept that proved to be the ________ that resulted in their selection to develop a four node network that became the Internet.

Core competencies can be described as:

What are the differences between performance, conformance, and reliability dimensions of quality?

No one could turn around a failing restaurant as expertly as Gordon, whose experience and cadre of trained professionals was available at a moment's notice should his services be needed. This ability, some might call it a gift, was developed to such a level that other restaurant consultants were unable to match his results. This ability is best described as his:

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.

Electra wants to purchase a laptop for use in her MBA program so she can work on assignments and surf the web while the professor drones on endlessly. After consulting with her colleagues, she chooses the dimensions of cost, weight, processor speed, and touchscreen capability as critical to her long term success and amusement. She evaluates four different laptops and rates their performance on each criterion on a scale from 1 (poor)to 5 (excellent). She is struggling with her assessment of the importance of the Cost criterion. As an avid lottery player, she is pretty sure that tonight's drawing will mean at least two numbers match on the ticket she bought on the way to class and it could possibly mean a three-number match. Given her uncertainty, she would like to choose the laptop that performs the best overall across the entire spectrum of possibilities of the outcome of tonight's lottery. Which would you recommend? Dimension Importance Sir Face Toybook Air Knockoff High Priced Weight 3 4 4 3 5 Speed 5 4 4 4 3 Cost ?? 2 4 5 1 Touchscreen 1 5 2 3 3

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.

What creates the necessity for trade-offs?