1. Though there are similarities between goods and service, there are significant differences; discuss five of those differences and what makes them significant.
2. Relate a service encounter to a moment of truth. Do they have to be person-to-person? Explain.
3. Define what a process is from an operations perspective. Also, please differentiate a value creation process, a support process, and a general management process. Include "real world" examples.
4. For each of the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), provide real world business examples of business practices that support it. Also, explain why they are critical in today's operational climate?
5. Define value and discuss three (3) ways for organizations to increase value.
6. What are the major decisions a firm must address in designing and configuring a value chain? What are some of the "pitfalls" to watch for as a decision-maker? Provide "real world" examples.
7. List the variety of economic and noneconomic issues to be considered when making offshore decisions.
8. A large hotel-casino in Las Vegas is currently under construction. There will be an Italian restaurant in the hotel that will serve pizza. Management is trying to decide whether to make the pizza themselves or buy it frozen and simply heat it to customer order. There are two major sources of commercial-grade frozen pizza; Ma Ma's Products and the Chun-Yee Corporation. If they make the pizza themselves a substantial amount of preparation equipment will be required, along with skilled personnel. Frozen pizza needs either a conventional oven (Ma Ma's) or a microwave (Chun-Yee). Financial data is as shown below (variable costs are estimated based on an average pizza purchase):
Source Fixed Cost/year Variable Cost
Make in-house $7,870 $3.20
Ma Ma's $ 860 $5.60
Chun-Yee $2,460 $4.50
a. At what volume is either Ma Ma's or Chun-Yee acceptable?
b. At what volume is the company indifferent to either Chun-Yee or make in-house?
9. You have been tasked for the next operations meeting, to lead the discussion concerning two alternatives being considered. One is for a customer's order whose anticipated volume is not yet known. It has been forecasted that if the firm produces in-house, the fixed cost is $340,000 and variable cost is $2.90 per unit. If the firm chooses to outsource, it will incur a fixed cost of $275,000 and variable cost of $3.50 per unit. Determine the potential breakeven quantity and a decision rule of when to outsource. What is this telling us considering this is more from a forecasting perspective?
Now, you will have to do some mathematical manipulation to answer this. Also, please show ALL work in this and if you are using Excel, please make sure you attach your outputs.
10. Explain the concepts underlying the service-profit chain model.
11. Discuss the five key dimensions of assessing service quality.
12. Define interlinking. Why is this concept significant?
13. Using the information provided in the table below, determine the percentage change in productivity from 2012 to 2013. Please show ALL work and describe what the final numbers are tell you? (If you use Excel, make sure you attach your outputs.)
2012 2013
OUTPUTS
Units 110,000 150,000
INPUTS
Direct Labor Costs $250,000 $310,000
Energy Cost $6,000 $5,800
Raw Material Cost $40,000 $42,000
14. Using the information below, determine the productivity (measured as output per dollar input) for the each quarter and calculate the percentage change in productivity. Please show ALL work and discuss what the final numbers mean. (If using Excel, make sure you have attached your outputs.)
First Quarter Second Quarter
Total Units Sold 12,000 11,500
Labor Hours 10,000 9,500
Labor Cost/Hour $8.00 $8.00
Material Usage (lbs.) 6,000 5,500
Material Cost/lb. $12.00 $11.50
Other Costs $25,000 $23,000