Supply Chain

Question 1

External inputs to balance inputs and outputs

Answer 1

Competitor’s behavior
Raw materials availability
External capacity
Economic conditions
Market demand

Question 2

Internal inputs to balance supply and demand

Answer 2

Current workforce
Production, Activities required for
Inventory levels
Current physical capacity

Question 3

Common internal strats for balancing supply and demand

Answer 3

Production rates, change
Hire and fire
Overtime
Temp workers
Excess inventory
Large backlogs
Subcontracting

Question 4

Common external strats for balance ing supply and demand

Answer 4

Ads
Bundled offerings
Turn down orders
Price adjustment
Promotions
Pre-orders

Question 5

Push definition and pros and cons

Answer 5

-Every worker maxes own output
-Keeps workers and workstations busy rather than efficient use of materials
-Defective work produced/not caught
-throughput inc as WIP increases
-bottlenecks and unfinished prods
-can’t respond to special orders/changes

Question 6

Definition and characteristics of pull

Answer 6

-prod controlled by last op, kanban
-controls wip and eliminates wip accumulation at bottlenecks
-keeps materials not operators busy
-no slack if problem
-throughput time and wip decreases
-faster reaction to defects

Question 7

How much of gnp does inventory account for and $ amount?

Answer 7

25%, 1.25 trillion

Question 8

What are benefits of inventory?

Answer 8

-supply hedge
-demand hedge
-ordering costs economization
-smoothing

Question 9

What are the cost of inventory?

Answer 9

-holding costs
-obsolescence
-rework
-spoilage
-opportunity cost
-shrinkage

Question 10

Break out total cost equation

Answer 10

Total cost
= ordering cost + inventory cost

Ordering = # orders * cost/order

Inventory = avg. inv * holding costs

Question 11

Long term supply chain strat

Answer 11

SC strategy
Strategic
Competitive

Supply chain model
Vertical integration
Outsourcing
Network configuration

Question 12

Mid term supply chain strat

Answer 12

SC operations planning
Tactical

Lean
Inventory management
Sales and operations

Question 13

Short term supply chain strat

Answer 13

SC execution
Operational

Scheduling
-people
-equipment
-products

Question 14

What is the bullwhip effect?

Answer 14

Magnification of orders as we move upstream in a supply chain from customer

Question 15

What are the causes of the bullwhip effect?

Answer 15

Forecast inaccuracies
Order batching
Price fluctuations
Shortage gaming

Question 16

Solutions to bullwhip effect

Answer 16

Reduce order costs/batch size
Eliminate discounts and promos
Increase information sharing

Question 17

What is forecasting and what is it used for?

Answer 17

Prediction of future events used for planning purposes

-strategic planning
-finance and accounting
-marketing
-production and operations

Question 18

What are the general characteristics of forecasts?

Answer 18

D-no substitute for actual demand
E-must include error estimate
W-almost always wrong
G-more accurate in groups and families
S-more accurate in shorter periods of time

Question 19

What are the patterns of demand?

Answer 19

Trends
Seasonality
Cyclical elements
Auto correlation
Random variation

Question 20

What are some quantitative forecasting methods?

Answer 20

Simulation
Causal relationships
Time series