Exam Questions Supply Chain Strategy Ch2

File: ch02, Chapter 2: Supply Chain Strategy

Multiple Choice

1. SCM competitive advantage can be derived from two primary areas:
2. Cost and value
3. Suppliers and customers
4. Productivity and sustainability
5. Logistics and marketing
6. Responsiveness and relationship management

Level: Easy

1. A product’s cost advantage may include the following:
2. High service
3. Customization
4. Reputation
5. Sustainability
6. None of the above

Level: Medium

1. Ways that companies can gain a value advantage include:
2. Value-segmenting
3. Supplier relationship management
4. Service and support
5. Lowest cost
6. a and c

g

Level: Medium

1. The experience curve describes the relationship between:
2. Value and experience
3. Volume and experience
4. Service levels and experience
5. Costs and experience
6. Innovation and experience

Level: Medium

1. Building blocks of SCM strategy include:
2. Operations
3. Distribution
4. Sourcing
5. Customer service
6. All of the above

Level: Easy

1. Operations strategy focuses primarily on:
2. Improved coordination between supply chain partners
3. Reducing inventory across the supply chain
4. How goods and services will be produced
5. Segmenting customers/markets
6. All of the above

Level: Difficult

1. The most effective strategy for companies that produce standardized, commodity products is:
2. Make-to-order
3. Assemble-to-order
4. Make-to-stock
5. Reverse logistics
6. Customer service

Level: Medium

1. The most effective strategy when there are many variations of the end product is:
2. Make-to-order
3. Assemble-to-order
4. Make-to-stock
5. Adaptability
6. None of the above

Level: Medium

1. Customers’ ability to customize products reflects which operations strategy
2. Make-to-order
3. Assemble-to-order
4. Make-to-stock
5. Reverse logistics
6. None of the above

Level: Medium

1. Distribution strategy involves decisions about:
2. Supplier selection
3. Product development
4. Transportation modes
5. How to get products to customers
6. a and b

Level: Medium

1. In defining a distribution strategy, a company must consider the importance of channel intermediaries including:
2. Suppliers and manufacturers
3. Suppliers and customers
4. Retailers and distributors
5. Distributors and suppliers
6. None of the above

Level: Difficult

1. The outsourcing decision relates to which building block of SCM strategy:
2. Operations
3. Distribution
4. Sourcing
5. Logistics
6. Customer service

Level: Easy

1. An outsourcing strategy can result in the following:
2. Ability to respond quickly to demand changes
3. Gain a competitive advantage
4. Eliminate risk
5. Loss of flexibility
6. a and b

Level: Medium

1. Risks to a company that can result from outsourcing include:
2. Customers demanding higher quality and better service
3. Loss of control over a product or process
4. Increasing technological capabilities
5. Lower costs
6. a and b

Level: Easy

1. Benefits to a company that can result from outsourcing include:
2. Accessing new markets/customers
3. Lower costs
4. Decreased flexibility
5. Decreased demand
6. a and b

Level: Easy

1. When defining a customer service strategy, companies should first:
2. Outsource non-core competencies
3. Define the sales volume and profits in each market segment
4. Improve relationship management processes
5. Pressure suppliers for lower costs and better service
6. None of the above

Level: Difficult

1. How a company competes in the marketplace is defined as:
2. Operations strategy
3. Market segmentation
4. Competitive priority
5. Alliance development
6. All of the above

Level: Medium

1. Of the five priorities by which companies compete in the marketplace, which relates to having efficient, integrated operations:
2. Cost
3. Time
4. Logistics
5. Service
6. Market segmentation

Level: Easy

1. Companies that compete primarily on innovation typically focus on two attributes:
2. Operations and logistics
3. Sourcing and operations
4. Quality and time
5. Speed and product design
6. Cost and time

Level: Medium

1. Investing in and utilizing RFID tag technology typically fits with which competitive priority:
2. Time
3. Quality
4. Cost
5. Segmentation
6. a and b

Level: Medium

1. Two concepts that companies must continually monitor when evaluating strategy are:
2. Regulation and compliance requirements
3. Inventory levels and costs
4. Time and quality
5. Order winners and order qualifiers
6. Innovation and quality

Level: Easy

1. Adaptability, in terms of defining SCM strategy, relates to a company’s ability to:
2. Continually locate the lowest cost supplier
3. Evolve and adapt as market conditions change
4. Increase capacity as demand increases
5. Outsource production
6. None of the above

Level: Easy

1. Factors in today’s business environment that require companies to have adaptable supply chains include:
2. Development of new technologies
3. Frequent changing to a company’s business scope
4. Increase in outsourcing
5. Increasing working capital needs
6. a and b

Level: Easy

1. A worker can produce 1000 units during an 8 hour shift, thus the productivity of that worker is:
2. 100 units/hour
3. 80 units/hour
4. 800 units/hour
5. 125 units/hour
6. None of the above

Level: Easy

1. One of the key aspects that must be considered when interpreting productivity measures is:
2. Benchmarking
3. Collaboration
4. Coordination
5. Responsiveness
6. None of the above

Level: Medium

True/False

1. A business strategy is a company plan that defines short term goals and core competencies.

Level: Easy

1. Supply chain strategy should closely link with and support a company’s business strategy.

Level: Easy

1. Competitive advantage, derived from supply chain management practices, can be the result of two primary areas: cost AND productivity.

Level: Medium

1. Commodity products are typically bought by consumers because of the product’s value.

Level: Medium

1. A key area where companies are adding value to products is by focusing on service.

Level: Easy

1. One building block of SCM strategy is alliance development.

Level: Medium

1. Operations strategy involves decisions about which suppliers to utilize.

Level: Medium

1. A made to stock operations strategy offers customers the ability to customize products.

Level: Medium

1. An assemble to order operations strategy allows firms to lower inventory costs.

Level: Medium

1. The make to order operations strategy typically requires longer customer lead times.

Level: Difficult

1. All industries should strive to implement a make to order strategy because this strategy provides the highest level of customer service.

Level: Difficult

1. Understanding a product’s life cycle is important to defining an operations strategy.

Level: Medium

1. Distribution strategy involves the decision to sell products directly to consumers or through channel intermediaries.

Level: Medium

1. The same distribution strategy should be deployed to all markets because of cost savings.

Level: Difficult

1. Sourcing strategy involves decisions about outsourcing.

Level: Easy

1. Processes that are strategic differentiators for a company should be outsourced because they are typically the most expensive processes to manage.

Level: Medium

1. Outsourcing can allow companies to respond to demand changes more quickly.

Level: Easy

1. Outsourcing can provide many benefits but it also carries numerous risks that must be evaluated and managed.

Level:Easy

1. As a company increases the scope of an outsourced process, the risk to the company decreases.

Level: Difficult: Medium

1. Giving one supplier too much control creates a dependency risk for a company.

Level: Easy

1. Customer service strategies should be developed based on market segmentation.

Level: Easy

1. When designing a SCM strategy, mimicking a market leader always leads to success.

Level: Easy

1. Successful companies are able to compete on all competitive priorities.

Level: Easy

1. An order qualifier is an attribute that is a must-have for a company to compete in the marketplace.

Level: Medium

1. Without substantial market influence, there are very few strategies for small firms to compete.

Level: Medium

1. The ability to adapt strategies to a changing environment is the same for all industries.

Level: Difficult

1. Evaluating SCM strategy is best done on an annual or bi-annual basis.

Level: Easy

1. Productivity measures the utilizations of a company’s resources.

Level: Medium

1. For the month of August, the values of a company’s outputs and inputs were $100,000 and $40,000 respectively, thus the total productivity measure would be 2.0

Level: Easy

1. Productivity must be measured over time in order to provide a valuable measure of performance.

Level: Easy

Essay

1. A company’s SCM strategy should align with its business strategy. Provide an example of a business strategy and the SCM strategy that would support it.

Level: Medium

1. Describe how SCM can provide both a cost and value advantage over competitors.

Level: Easy

1. List the five primary SCM competitive priorities and select one to describe in depth, including an example of how that priority is executed.

Level: Medium