Deck 2: Productivity and Strategic Planning

Question 1

High productivity is not necessary but is sufficient to assure competitiveness.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Capital productivity can be measured in two different ways.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The productivity of the company is the composite of the contributions of the individual productivity functions.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

A major factor that accounts for poor productivity is democracy-the great inhibitor of flexibility.

Question 5

There have been substantial investments in computers and telecommunications within the service sectors,but there are no signs of improvement in productivity.

Question 6

Productivity is an important way of grading how well P/OM and the rest of the system are doing.

Question 7

Bureaucracy is the opponent of operational change.

Question 8

Economist believe that productivity improvements translate into lower standards of living and greater prosperity.

Question 9

P/OM history shows that the overall trend in global economies is to decrease productivity.

Question 10

Operations management views the measurement of productivity as essential for assessing the performance of an organization's productive capacity over a specific time period and in comparison to the competition.

Question 11

Strategy planning for operations is directly concerned with "Do the right thing."

Question 12

Despite other nations experiencing productivity increases,the U.S.economy shows many signs of decreased productivity while increasing the manufacturing labor force and decreasing the service sector labor force.

Question 13

Capital productivity is measured in dollars as the ratio obtained when the costs for all the resources used are divided into the total output of goods and services.

Question 14

Product life is becoming longer.

Question 15

Once democracy gains control it strives to remove corrective counterswings and maintain existing conditions.

Question 16

Many companies measure the productivity of their complaint departments by the ratio of the number of complaints dealt with per day divided by the number of complaint handlers.

Question 17

Age is correlated with circulatory insufficiencies in human beings and a lack of communication in organizations.

Question 18

After many years of declining growth rates,and even some years of negative growth,U.S.productivity has now accelerated to levels equivalent to post-World War II years.

Question 19

With respect to auto parts,"On average,the plants in Japan were 18 percent more productive than ones in the United States,and 35 percent more productive than ones in Europe."

Question 20

If productivity is being measured in dollars or local currencies,exchange rate problems can distort the picture.

Question 21

A product with high elasticity experiences large decreases in demand when there are price increases.

Question 22

The stages of history have moved production and operations capabilities from low-volume custom work through high-volume rapid and continuous output systems.

Question 23

Speeding up production will never compromise quality.

Question 24

Large,centralized organizations tend to exhibit greater flexibility and adaptability to change than new and small- and medium-sized firms.

Question 25

Productivity gets good grades when a low rate of output is obtained at a low cost.

Question 26

It is conjectured that in the future the transformation process will continue decreasing in complexity and productivity.

Question 27

Ford's contribution to production theory and to the revision of the transformation process had a major impact on the Japanese automobile industry.

Question 28

Some of the largest expenditures for R&D,amounting to billions of dollars,have been highly unproductive.

Question 29

Improved productivity,if it is to translate into greater customer satisfaction and loyalty,must come from working harder,not smarter.

Question 30

Adaptability is critical when product or design technology or style remains constant.

Question 31

Variable costs per unit tend to decrease as volume increases.

Question 32

Decreasing quality to match lower prices is not a way to keep customers.

Question 33

Lower discounts that arise because of smaller purchase volumes,decrease variable costs per unit.

Question 34

Everyone has the ability to increase or decrease the organization's productivity.

Question 35

Elasticity is a complex relationship.There can be kinks in the curve.

Question 36

During the 1970s,Japanese organizations,spearheaded by Toyota,developed a new kind of production methodology called lean production systems.Many global companies continue to refine and apply these methods.

Question 37

Called the father of "scientific management," Shewhart was one of the key progenitors of industrial engineering (IE).

Question 38

It is not necessary to establish how much extra money customers would be willing to pay for superior quality of an added quality feature.

Question 39

To make division of labor worthwhile,the volume of production must be sufficient.

Question 40

The achievement of quality standards is an indirect responsibility of P/OM.

Question 41

The number of bureaucratic systems is decreasing worldwide.

Question 42

U.S.productivity averaged just slightly over two percent from 1948 through 1973 followed by a shrinking era which lasted until 1995.

Question 43

Although much knowledge exists about production systems and operations management,there have been and continue to be serious productivity problems in the world.

Question 44

Every function in the company that has some measurable accomplishment can be evaluated with respect to productivity.

Question 45

Technology allows employees to work virtually anywhere on many subjects without geographical restrictions.

Question 46

Bureaucratic organizations are very successful at fostering innovation and change.

Question 47

Speeding up production cannot compromise quality.

Question 48

Increasingly,companies buy from suppliers located around the world and sell in markets that are equally dispersed.

Question 49

Operational measures of productivity are valuable to companies that are focused on continuous improvement.

Question 50

For strategic planning it is vital that marketing determine how quality levels of the product line affect competitive status.

Question 51

Output delivered to the customer is a measure of the ability of the distribution system to be on-time with undamaged deliveries.

Question 52

Another way of stating the measure of productivity is to put a dollar value on the output volume per unit of time.

Question 53

Japan's phenomenal productivity growth rates of the 1980s were easily maintained.

Question 54

Elasticity is expressed as a function (f) that relates changes in price (p) with changes in demand volume (Vp).

Question 55

Asking for increased productivity is another way to ask for lower costs.This is not equivalent to asking for labor cuts.

Question 56

Formulating appropriate productivity measures to capture the effectiveness of operations is always a P/OM benchmarking challenge.

Question 57

Bureaucracy plays an important stabilizing role in organizations that are undisciplined and prone to accidents.

Question 58

Productivity measures are excluded from inflation calculations.

Question 59

A highly productive manufacturer of buggy whips in 1926 would be no better off today than an inefficient or lackadaisical one.

Question 60

The employees of a small start-up company are typically involved in constant communication.

Question 61

The annual average percentage change in multifactor productivity from 1995-2000 was _____.

A)2.2
B)0.5
C)1.3
D)1.7

Question 62

Productivity is measured by high customer sales volume divided by low producer expenses or

A)effectiveness divided by efficiency.
B)efficiency divided by effectiveness.
C)dollars divided by hour.
D)none of the above

Question 63

Customers in the marketplace take _____ into account.

A)price
B)quality
C)price and quality
D)none of the above

Question 64

_____ is the rate-of-change measure that expresses the degree to which demand grows or shrinks in response to a price change.

A)Perfect elasticity
B)Elasticity
C)Perfect inelasticity
D)none of the above

Question 65

The supplier-producer-customer value chain,by definition adds value at every step,which illustrates strategic impact operating on a _____ scale.

A)local
B)organizational
C)global
D)centralized

Question 66

_____ productivity compares the performance of competitive processes for which P/OM is accountable.

A)Multifactor
B)Capital
C)Relative
D)Labor

Question 67

Capital productivity can be measured by

A)units of output divided by dollars of capital.
B)sales in dollars divided by dollars of labor.
C)both a and b
D)neither a nor b

Question 68

A sensible limit for the size of an efficient production system is in the neighborhood of _____ to _____ people.

A)100;200
B)300;500
C)600;900
D)1000;2000

Question 69

Productivity improvements can be registered by companies that

A)reduce the number of direct employees.
B)increase the use of part-time help.
C)rely more on subcontracting of parts.
D)all of the above

Question 70

Productivity measures can be common sense ratios such as

A)the value of pieces made in a factory divided by the cost of making them.
B)the number of documents produced by the typing pool divided by the number of people doing word processing.
C)sales dollars per square foot of space.
D)all of the above

Question 71

Productivity is _____ and equals a measure of production efficiency.

A)outputs divided by inputs
B)outputs added to inputs
C)inputs divided by outputs
D)inputs minus outputs

Question 72

When outputs are _____ and inputs are _____,the system is said to be efficient and productive.

A)high;low
B)low;high
C)slow;fast
D)fast;slow

Question 73

P/OM strategic thinking is used to help find the best product line for the marketplace and then to make these products at the

A)lowest cost.
B)highest quality.
C)maximum productivity level.
D)all of the above

Question 74

Small- and medium-sized firms are organizations with about _____ people.

A)300
B)600
C)700
D)900

Question 75

_____ productivity is where the effects of labor and capital are combined and divided into the output.

A)Labor
B)Multifactor
C)Total
D)both b and c

Question 76

Poor R&D productivity yields

A)inferior processes.
B)difficult operations and low profit margins.
C)poor quality and high costs.
D)all of the above

Question 77

Measured by the U.S.Labor Department,_____ productivity reflects the joint effects of many factors including labor and capital.

A)multifactor
B)labor
C)capital
D)both a and b

Question 78

The elasticity-productivity tie between operations management and marketing is best described by the following:

A)marketing tries to control demand volume through pricing.
B)to be competitive it is necessary to find ways to match price decreases offered by competitors.
C)demand volume falls as price rises,but is also relative to what prices competitors charge.
D)all of the above

Question 79

Productivity could be measured as units of output per dollar of labor input (in a period of time).This is defined as

A)productivity.
B)capital productivity.
C)single productivity.
D)labor productivity.

Question 80

_____ is when demand does not change-no matter what the price.This is an accurate description of the situation when an industrial customer is dependent on one supplier for critical,special materials.

A)Perfect elasticity
B)Elasticity
C)Perfect inelasticity
D)Inelasticity