[Answers] 138 Questions of Operations Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry (2023)

In project manufacturing environments, the nature of the products is often large-scale and complex.

• True
• False

There are two key reasons why quality has become strategic.

• True
• False

An ABC analysis is a surprisingly accurate, although simplistic, approach to managing inventory.

• True
• False

As firms move internationally, therefore, the strategic checklist changes. In order to succeed with such investments it is necessary to do one of the following:

• the franchisee’s closeness to their market enables the firm to learn quickly about local market conditions
• a quick start-up must be planned and managed, to ensure sufficient revenue generation over the life of the product, linked to specificity of the technology employed.
• capacity (locations and levels at each plant)
• operative and service competences in developing countries must be developed to world-class levels

Training and development has two contributions to make. First, of course, it equips people with the necessary skills and capabilities for understanding and operating equipment or processes.

• True
• False

Becomes more appropriate as the volume of a particular product increases, leading to greater standardization than in low batch volumes.

• Line processes
• None of the choices
• Job processes
• Work processes

Capacity management is based on understanding the specific characteristics of volume, variety, variation, variability, predictability and perishability.

• True
• False

Expanding mobile phone research while helping Chinese government researchers devise an advanced 3G wireless standard for use worldwide is Matsushita.

• True
• False

The strategic management of supply is a critical part of managing the operations of an organization, and may represent the most critical part.

• True
• False

Focus is essentially about deciding which businesses and markets the firm wants to be in and then ensuring that strategic resonance occurs between this intention and operations capabilities.

• True
• False

Organizational congruence is the extent to which all managerial levels within the firm share a common vision and work together towards a common purpose.

• True
• False

Taylor’s model became the blueprint not only for the mass production factories of the 1920s and 1930s, but also for many other types of business.

• True
• False

The third era (the current and, for the foreseeable future at least, the likely scenario) is more difficult to name and has been called various things.

• The Modern Era
• The Craft Era
• The Mass Production Era
• The Current Era

The external management of relationships with suppliers to ensure the effective and efficient supply of inputs.

• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Production control
• Supply chain management

There are four key reasons why quality has become strategic.

• True
• False

Managing human resources as part of strategic operations management is difficult for many firms.

• True
• False

In manufacturing, job processes are used for ‘one-off’ or very small order requirements, similar to project manufacture.

• True
• False

Corporate value-adding chains are located to exploit optimal resources and strategic capability. Global logistics, global sourcing and global brands.

• Multinational

A line process becomes more appropriate as the volume of a particular product increases, leading to greater standardization than in low batch volumes.

• True
• False

Employment security, Choosing the right people, Valuing and rewarding them, Wage compression, Symbolic egalitarianism

• Commitment to people as strategic resources

ISO 9000 is an internationally recognized standard of quality.

• True
• False

Observers of Japanese industrial structure coined the term ‘first tier’ to describe the powerful, large suppliers that supported the household name manufacturers of cars, consumer durable and capital equipment that were such a part of Japan’s revival in the post-war period.

• True
• False

The latest process technology can be bought and accumulated, but human skills are more complex.

• True
• False

Japan’s largest consumer electronics company will spend $330 million on a Chinese R&D center, boosting the number of engineers from 110 to 1500 by 2005.

• Microsoft
• Intel
• Matsushita
• Alcatel

Team working, Cross-boundary working, Participation and involvement, mechanisms, Stakeholder focus and involvement

• Shared involvement

It is not a specific type of process type; it depends fundamentally upon the transformation process.

• None of the choices
• Job process
• Mass customization
• Line process

Successful organizations do not happen by accident, they have a clear and thought-out sense of direction, and can mobilize support for their strategic goals.

• True
• False

The management and organization of the workforce within the organization.

• Customer organization
• Customer satisfaction
• Work organization
• Production control

The archetype in the multi-brand context has more than one concept to manage but does so by applying almost identical ‘rules of the game’ to them all – namely, tight cost controls, standards conformance and revenue growth.

• True
• False

ISO 9000 is an internationally recognized standard of west.

• True
• False

Just started work on a large, basic research center in Shanghai. The facility will also assist in GE’s procurement of Chinese-made plastics and other materials.

Home country operations with global sourcing, marketing and distribution. Product or process plant strategy.

• Domestic

_____________ of operations and markets leads to further challenges for positioning supply management.

• None of the choices
• Globalization
• Process
• Globe

The juxtaposition of company-owned and franchised units encourages benchmarking across the two, thereby creating a climate of friendly competition, with each trying to outperform the other.

• ratcheting

It is an element of mass customization.

• None of the choices
• Fixed manufacturing
• Flexible manufacturing
• Continuous manufacturing

It is one of the big challenges in contemporary organizations, and it is likely to become even more so in an environment where organizations need to re-invent themselves on a continuous basis.

The need for the operations to be framed in a strategy is brought to the fore.

• Flexible specialization
• Agile
• Strategic
• Lean production

The ______ and ______ model enables the supply strategist to define the role of the purchasing process and the function (i.e. the department).

• Rock and Long
• Reck and Long
• None of the choices
• Rock and Roll

Quality is not an option in most walks of life.

• True
• False

Any ‘learning organization’ will not require the continual discovery and sharing of new knowledge.

• True
• False

Corporate staff services developed to support operations are exposed to market conditions when franchisees can opt out of utilizing these services.

• market pressure

It is already possible for Internet users to exchange goods using ‘e-credits’, which perform the same function as money but have no value except on the Internet.

• True
• False

It is concerned with those activities that enable an organization to transform a range of ten strategic operations management basic inputs into outputs for the end customer.

• Capacity Management
• Scheduling Management
• Supply Management
• Operations Management

Local learning is the juxtaposition of company-owned and franchised units encourages benchmarking across the two, thereby creating a climate of friendly competition, with each trying to outperform the other.

• True
• False

Supply management does not have a significant role to play in focusing operations.

• True
• False

The second challenge for the future lies in the area of ________.

• involvement
• process
• Sustainability
• work

Searching the environment for technical and economic clues to trigger the process of change.

• Generating
• Choosing
• Recognizing
• Aligning

The final area in which there are significant future challenges for the strategic operations manager in managing the innovation process lies in the concept of ____________________.

• work
• sustainability
• process
• involvement

Organizational structures are not influenced by the nature of tasks to be performed within the organization.

• True
• False

Assessing the organization's internal strengths and weaknesses, and comparing them with external opportunities and threats(a SWOT analysis).

• Internal audit
• None of the choices
• Generating strategic options
• External audit

The planned and effective introduction of new systems.

• CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Commitment to training and, development, Embedding a learning cycle, Measurement, Continuous improvement culture

• Shared learning and development

What does JIT stands for in Strategic Operations Management?

• Just-in-teach
• Just-in-time
• Just-in-true
• Just-in-term

Entrepreneurial area managers are responsible for a single concept, also tightly branded, but are expected to develop the potential of each unit as a business.

• True
• False

All operations have to hold levels of inventories. The typical reasons for this are (Waters, 2003, p.7): EXCEPT.

• to make full loads and reduce transport costs
• to buy items when the price is low and expected to rise
• to take advantage of price discounts
• None of the choices

During the 1990s, supply strategists began to realize that they had, in general, too many suppliers.

• True
• False

One lesson which emerges consistently when looking at high-performance organizations is their commitment to training and development.

• True
• False

High volume was an issue here, and managing capacity is common to both manufacturing and service elements in ensuring the total provision to end customers.

• True
• False

The selection of the right approach to producing goods or delivering service.

• process choice
• Flexible specialization
• innovation
• supply chain management

Our case had a small employment base but their input was critical.

• Innovation
• Inventory
• Supply
• Human resources

The way in which the service concept and service package are actually delivered to the consumer.

• Service delivery system
• Flexible system
• Operation system
• Production system

Nearly one-third of the survey participants (31.2 per cent) said that, in their companies, the manager is ‘most responsible’ for value-chain-improvement initiatives. Another 33.6 percent indicated that responsibility rested at the mayor level.

• True
• False

It is the globalization impacts on operations management in a number of ways, EXCEPT:

• capacity (locations and levels at each plant)
• skills requirements and employment levels in production
• local supply lines must be set up
• plant technology and supplier relations – which have to be configured in a plant-specific way in order to deal with the peculiar requirements of each plant but managed as a global network.

The ‘traditional’ line process, which mass-produced one product in high volume, clearly fails to meet the requirement of variety.

• True
• False

A strategic decision can profoundly alter, and have major consequences for, the firm.

• True
• False

In the _____ 1990s, GSK (in its former name of SmithKline Beecham – SB) put in place a worldwide IT system that allowed any budget holder in the corporation, anywhere in the world, to find the best buy for any item, and to understand the corporate policy associated with the purchase they are about to make.

• late
• early
• mid
• None of the choices

The term ‘supply management’ is now about 25 years old, having being coined in the early 1980s by consultants (Houlihan, 1992) in various parts of North America and Europe to crystallize the concept of managing an organization in the light of the activities, resources and strategies of other organizations on which it relies.

• True
• False

Focus is concerned with what the organization chooses not to do itself – and must therefore obtain from its supply network.

• True
• False

A process layout is used where a product may be heavy, bulky or fragile and in this approach operators come to the product itself.

• True
• False

Examining changes in the environment, the industry and searching for links with other firms, including supplies.

• External audit
• Internal audit
• None of the choices
• Generating strategic options

Strategic leadership, Shared planning processes, Policy deployment, Information sharing, Employee ownership

• Shared purpose

The mass production era or the third major era is known as mass production, although once again its principles were by no means restricted to manufacturing.

• True
• False

It is commonplace to hear managers and chairmen of companies say that ‘people are our biggest asset’.

• True
• False

Control charts use SPC information to start the analytical process off, asking why these errors occur at this time.

• True
• False

In this layout, machines are dedicated to a particular product or a very similar small range of products and each stage of manufacture is distinct from the next.

• Product layout
• Fixed layout
• Process layout
• None of the choices

Operations are regionally divided but with product or process plant strategies for each site. Each site can thus serve the rest of the world.

• Regional

Adjusting demand to better match supply is called demand management.

• True
• False

It is not common to hear supply strategists speak of ‘tier-half’, referring to suppliers to whom so much responsibility (e.g. for design and production) has been given that they must be seen as not entirely separate from the customer.

• True
• False

Pareto analysis is used to represent this information in visual form.

• True
• False

Hybrid firms have a more diverse source of new ideas and alternative range of screening processes than those available to firms operating within one business format.

• Market Pressure
• Mutual learning
• Racheting
• Modelling

An important concern for operations managers is inventory.

• Demand
• Costs
• Supply
• Assets

Process capability is what the customer sees and feels.

• True
• False

One of the fundamental flaws in the Ford/Taylor model was the assumption that it represented the ‘one best way’.

• True
• False

In 1950, Walter Shewhart wrote a book based on his experience in the Bell Telephone Laboratories entitled The Economic Control of Manufactured Products

• True
• False

Two developments have fundamentally affected the way in which purchasing is positioned as part of the supply process: __________________ and _________________ of business organizations.

• IT and Global Extreme
• Information Technologies and Global expansions of Business Organizations
• None of the choices
• Information and Global

As volume begins to increase, either in terms of individual products (i.e. total volume) or in the manufacture of similar ‘types’ or ‘families’ of products (i.e. greater number of products in any one group or family), the process will develop into batch manufacture.

• True
• False

Job scope is the extent to which units within an area are identical or not.

• True
• False

In a business sense, holistic means ‘seeing the whole’ in terms of where the business is positioned.

• True
• False

Unit conformity is the range of tasks and responsibilities at area management level.

• True
• False

One of the most important areas is the design and execution of the processes through which the service is delivered to the customer.

• True
• False

Operates five Chinese labs, some of which have moved beyond semiconductor research. One is investigating better human/machine interfaces.

Stratification used to identifying different levels of problems and symptoms using statistical techniques applied to each layer.

• True
• False

It is used where a product may be heavy, bulky or fragile and in this approach operators come to the product itself.

• Fixed layout
• Product layout
• Process layout

Appropriate organization design, Job and work organization design, Devolved decision making, Supportive communications

• Enabling structures

Layout where a plant or service location has specific activities or machinery grouped together.

• None of the choices
• Process layout
• Fixed layout
• Product layout

It is among a new breed of high-tech companies that’s defying conventional wisdom about how corporations ought to operate.

• Trend Micro
• Retching
• General electric
• Modelling

The franchisee’s closeness to their market enables the firm to learn quickly about local market conditions.

• Local learning

Ensuring a good fit between the overall business strategy and the proposed change – not innovating because it’s fashionable or as a knee-jerk response to a competitor.

• Aligning
• Generating
• Choosing
• Recognizing

There are problems with inventory ‘stock-outs’: EXCEPT.

• costly emergency procedures to rectify situations
• failure to satisfy customer demands
• the need for control
• higher replenishment costs for stock replacement

Drucker is not being critical of his ancestors, nor is he accusing them of not being innovative, nor is he stating that such an approach was ‘wrong’.

• True
• False

What does EOQ stands for in Strategic Operations Management?

• economic order quality
• None of the choices
• economic order quantity
• economic order queue

the way in which meetings are organized and decisions taken.

As can be seen from the Toys’R’Us case, having stock-outs or zero-inventory for customers is acceptable.

• True
• False

In some industries (for example, automobiles and market sectors within high-tech), two-way collaboration involving operations managers between two or more organizations is now commonplace. This is seen as a means to develop best practice and is often a central feature of innovation.

• The modern day of the organization
• The nature of the industry
• The size of the organization
• The reputation of the organization

Capacity has clear strategic consequences, but it is also linked to day-to-day scheduling.

• True
• False

Having the ability to create some aspects of technology in-house – through R&D, internal engineering groups, etc

• Learning
• Generating
• Recognizing
• Choosing

In the 1950s there was great enthusiasm for the ‘lights out’ factory.

• True
• False

Inventory is not about ‘buying things’; rather, its management goes right to the core of world-class practice in both manufacturing and services, and it is used as a key parameter in assessing capabilities.

• True
• False

In Japan, the tiers are not marked (and not documented). Elsewhere, they do not exist, simply because the historical development of firms has been more autonomous.

• True
• False

The __________ and _________ process is one of responding to demand for products and services from within the organization by providing the necessary resources to specification.

• Demand and Change
• None of the choices
• Process and Product
• Purchasing and Supply

Franchise operators model themselves on company run units, thereby encouraging the adoption of system-wide standards.

• modelling

Putting those new routines in place-in structure, processes, underlying behaviors, etc.

• Developing the organization
• Learning
• Generating
• Executing

The copper traders in Ur may have paid the merchants from Dilmun (Bahrain) for minerals from Makan (Oman), and considered they were doing business over great distances.

• True
• False

In a fixed layout, a plant or service location has specific activities or machinery grouped together.

• True
• False

Critical to quality is the attributes most important to the customer.

• True
• False

Wealth and fashion are the powers that drive the forces of supply for goods and services, while invention enables or constrains demand.

• True
• False

Product market, product and process plant strategies employed, providing global products as well as global brands.

• Worldwide

In a product layout, machines are dedicated to a particular product or a very similar small range of products and each stage of manufacture is distinct from the next.

• True
• False

It describes the particular types of clients for whom the service management system is targeted.

• Whole Segment
• Market Segment
• Key Segment
• Ignorant Segment

Although there is scope for individual activity, one of the main advantages in working in organizations is to benefit from the team effect.

• True
• False

Many Western firms have tended to view inventory management as a ‘tac-tical’ activity – this same ‘tactical’ attitude has also applied to operations management in general.

• True
• False

Geographic density is the number of units in an area relative to the size of the area.

• True
• False

The adaptation or renewal of the organization’s processes or outputs to ensure they adapt to changes in the external environment

• Process choice
• Control of resources
• Innovation
• Supply chain management

Specification that describes the benefits offered by the service.

• Service Concept
• Chain Concept
• Resonance Concept
• Broader Concept

Exploring and selecting the most suitable response to the environmental triggers that fit the strategy and the internal resource base/external technology network.

• Generating
• Choosing
• Learning
• Executing

In 1931, Walter Shewhart wrote a book based on his experience in the Bell Telephone Laboratories entitled The Economic Control of Manufactured Products

• True
• False

The practice of buying and selling is one of the oldest ‘professions’ in the world.

• True
• False

ISO 9000 can offer a framework for showing company.

• True
• False

The less programmed and more uncertain the tasks, the greater the need for flexibility around the structuring of relationships (Preece, 1995).

• True
• False

This is used when a process can (or must) run all day for each day of the year, on a continuous basis.

• Line processes
• Job processes
• None of the choices
• Continuous processes

Transferring technology from various outside sources and connecting it to the relevant internal points in the organization.

• Acquiring
• Choosing
• Learning
• Generating

Allocating resources and setting objectives so that the strategy can be monitored, and success and failures fed back on an ongoing bases.

• Implementing strategy
• None of the choices
• Internal audit
• External audit

Aspects that can be experienced through the sensory system (explicit intangibles).

• Sensual benefits
• The service delivery system
• Physical items
• Psychological benefits

Managing development projects for new products or processes from initial idea through to final launch.

• Generating
• Learning
• Executing
• Choosing

Database management has been very concerned with managing costs, but this important element of responsibility has changed recently to the management of value.

• True
• False

Defect is failing to deliver what the customer wants.

• True
• False

Davis and Meyer (1999) predicted the emergence of powerful consumer groups, made up of very large numbers of like-minded people.

• True
• False

The ‘business manager’ is responsible for more than one brand and applies creative solutions to each of their units within the context of over-arching policy guidelines and marketing strategies.

• True
• False