Ch. 3 Vocab for Test #2

Question 1

A system of structured activities that use resources to change inputs (energy, material, information, labor, knowledge) into valuable outputs.

Answer 1

process

Question 2

A way of viewing activities in an organization as processes rather than as departments or functions.

Answer 2

process thinking

Question 3

An activity that changes an input.

Answer 3

operational (change)

Question 4

An activity that moves an input from one place to another without changing any of the other characteristics.

Answer 4

transportation (move)

Question 5

An activity that checks or verifies the results of another activity.

Answer 5

inspection (check)

Question 6

An unintentional stoppage of the flow of work.

Answer 6

delay (wait)

Question 7

An activity that intentionally stops flow of work items and places them under formal control.

Answer 7

storage (inventory/store)

Question 8

The specific types of outputs and levels of performance that a process can generate.

Answer 8

process capabilities

Question 9

The limit on the amount of output per period of time that a process can generate or store given a level of inputs and resources available.

Answer 9

capacity

Question 10

The highest level of output that a process can achieve under ideal conditions in the short term; also known as design capacity.

Answer 10

maximum capacity

Question 11

The level of capacity or output that the process can be expected to produce under normal conditions; what management plans for under normal conditions.

Answer 11

effective capacity

Question 12

The percent of process capacity that is actually used.

Answer 12

utilization

Question 13

The percentage of units successfully produced as a percentage of inputs.

Answer 13

yield rate

Question 14

The overall management system that strives to improve system performance by identifying, focusing on, and managing constraints.

Answer 14

Theory of Constraints (TOC)

Question 15

An activity or resource that limits or constrains the output of a process.

Answer 15

bottleneck

Question 16

A process structure where the activities occur one after the other in sequence.

Answer 16

serial/sequential structure

Question 17

A process where there are two or more resources doing the same task simultaneously.

Answer 17

parallel structure

Question 18

An empirically proven relationship that exists between the flow time, inventory, and throughput.

Answer 18

Little’s Law

Question 19

The time it takes one unit to get through a process.

Answer 19

flow time

Question 20

The time that it takes to process one unit at an operation in the overall process.

Answer 20

cycle time

Question 21

The amount of time that an item spends waiting.

Answer 21

wait time