Ch11 Verified Test Bank Scheduling to Prioritize Demand

Matching Supply with Demand: An Introduction to Operations Management, 4e (Cachon)

Chapter 11 Scheduling to Prioritize Demand

1) When working with any scheduling system, what is the common objective across operations?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Scheduling Timeline and Applications

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

2) Aurelina Hair Salon has a busy morning ahead of them. During the first 3 hours of the day, their top hair stylist, Marcos, has 9 clients to serve. What is the flow rate in clients per minute that Marcos has to serve?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

[The following information applies to questions 3-6.]

Qi at Sun City Title Company

Qi is an underwriter who works at Sun City Title Company where she processes loans daily. She usually takes an average of 40 minutes to process each loan or job and can identify how long each one will take based on a few key indicators within the application. Today, she has five loans that she must process by the end of the day. Each job is labeled in alphabetical order based on the order in which it arrived. For example, A arrived first, and B came in second, etc. (See table below)

3) Qi's colleague suggests that she work through each job in a first-come-first-served (FCFS) sequence. Why would this not be the best method to use in this situation?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

4) Let's say, Qi's office requires underwriters to follow the shortest-processing-time (SPT) rule. In what order will Qi complete the jobs with SPT?

A) A, B, C, D, E, F

B) E, D, F, B, A, C

C) C, D, E on Day 1 and A, B, F on Day 2

D) D, E, F on Day 1 and A, B, C on Day 2

E) C, A, B, F, D, E

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

5) Let's say Qi decided not to waste a minute of her day and immediately starts the jobs according to the FCFS rule. What would the average flow time be after these five jobs?

A) 910

B) 160

C) 162

D) 150

E) 152

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

6) Before starting her work, Qi decides to take a moment to calculate average flow times. After she learns that the average flow time under FCFS is 152 minutes, she predicts that the SPT rule must yield a shorter average flow time. Is she correct?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

7) Brianna is a software developer who has four programs to complete this season. She estimates that one program will take two weeks to complete, two of them will take three weeks to complete and the other one will take her four weeks. Brianna plans to use some of her vacation time this season, so she will not accept any more program requests beyond these four this season.

What is Brianna's flow rate, or projects per week, during the time these programs are worked on?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Analyze

[The following information applies to questions 8-10.]

Last season, Brianna had one of the busiest periods of her career in software development. Take a look at the table below to see the number of programs she agreed to build. Once Brianna accepts a collection of jobs, or programs to build, at the beginning of a season, she does not accept any more until the next season. Brianna utilizes the shortest-processing-time (SPT) scheduling application.

8) Recall that Brianna uses the SPT rule. In what sequence did she build these six programs?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

9) What was Brianna's flow time of job F? (Enter your answer in weeks).

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

10) What was Brianna's average flow time of jobs in the system?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

11) Which of the following would be a reason to use first-come-first-served (FCFS) rather than shortest-processing-time (SPT)?

A) A sandwich shop has a long line of customers to serve.

B) A new tax accountant has to process a pile of income tax returns but isn't familiar with how to determine the length of time each one will take to process.

C) An insurance adjuster has just received several cases to process, but some of the information in the files may be biased in hopes of a faster processing time.

D) All of the above are reasons to use FCFS.

E) None of the above are reasons to use FCFS.

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling-Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

12) What scheduling system should be used when a company has to pay $0.50 for every hour it holds onto its inventory?

A) FCFS

B) SPT

C) WSPT

D) EDD

E) LPT

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Priorities-Weighted Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

[The following information applies to questions 13-14]

Southern States Bank has five small business loans to process and only one loan processor at this location. See the table below for more information on each loan's processing time and weight, or cost per unit of time).

13) What scheduling system should Southern States Bank use to process these small business loans?

A) WSPT

B) EDD

C) FCFS

D) SPT

E) LPT

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Priorities-Weighted Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

14) In what order will Southern States Bank process these loans if they use the weighted-shortest-processing-time (WSPT) rule?

A) E, D, B, A, C

B) A, B, C, D, E

C) D, B, E, A, C

D) E, D, C, B, A

E) C, A, B, D, E

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Priorities-Weighted Shortest Processing Time

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

15) When would it be most appropriate to sequence a series of jobs by earliest-due-date?

A) The weight of the jobs varies substantially.

B) The weight of the jobs varies minimally.

C) The shortest-processing-time pushes the jobs beyond the due date.

D) The shortest-processing-time does not take due-dates into consideration.

E) The jobs are on a strict completion timeline.

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Due Dates-Earliest Due Date

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

[The following information applies to questions 16-19]

The following jobs need to be processed using the earliest-due-date (EDD) rule.

16) What would be the lateness of Job A?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Due Dates-Earliest Due Date

AACSB: Analytical Thinking

Blooms: Analyze

17) What would be the tardiness of Job A?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Due Dates-Earliest Due Date

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

18) What is the maximum tardiness?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Due Dates-Earliest Due Date

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

19) Let's take the job information above and see how lateness would differ if the jobs are processed with SPT. Which of the following jobs would have a lateness amount greater than 0?

A) None of the jobs because they would all be completed in time.

B) All of the jobs would be late because SPT does not take into consideration due dates.

C) Jobs B and D would be late.

D) Only Job D would come in late.

E) Only Job C would come in late.

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Resource Scheduling with Due Dates-Earliest Due Date

AACSB: Knowledge Application

Blooms: Apply

20) Bridgeport Electronics is a small facility that distributes integral circuits throughout the Northeastern United States. It has seen an increase in orders recently due to the collapse of its biggest competitor. The management team is trying to decide on a more efficient workflow order to keep up with the demand. The customers have not designated due-dates, and fortunately, Bridgeport Electronics does not have to pay any inventory holding costs. The only issue at this point is that there has been a delay in producing circuit boards because a buffer behind one of its smaller machines has been filling up. What scheduling system should Bridgeport Electronics utilize to improve this process?

Difficulty: 3 Hard

Topic: Theory of Constraints

AACSB: Reflective Thinking

Blooms: Analyze