Deck 9: Operational Planning and Control Systems

Question 1

First Choice Ski increased the number of Web site sales by 266%.and improved business performance after implementing __________,which enabled them to respond quickly to visitors' clickstream behavior.

A)OLTP
B)order processing
C)POM systems
D)Web analytics

Answer 1

D

Question 2

POM departments may keep __________,which is extra inventory in case of unexpected events,such as spikes in demand or delivery delays.

A)buffer stock
B)safety stock
C)shortage stock
D)a and b

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Why are the three levels of management and decision making often modeled as a pyramid? .

A)To show the importance of senior management decision making on the organization.
B)To show the importance of the decisions made at each management level.
C)To show the hierarchy of the management levels.
D)All of the above.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Each level of management has its own _____.

A)data needs
B)decision making responsibilities
C)time horizons
D)All of the above

Question 5

Generally speaking,why do organizations automate TPS data entry as much as possible?

A)To reduce labor costs
B)To be able to capture online data
C)For competitive advantage
D)To minimize errors and data entry time

Question 6

In the August 2008 benchmark study,"Customer Analytics: Segmentation Beyond Demographics," respondents stated that their top data-related challenge was__________.

A)poor data quality
B)inability to collect data needed to calculate key performance metrics
C)information overload
D)encrypting data for security

Question 7

__________ are planning and control systems that capture and record all of the company's data from operations,and perform the routine transactions needed to conduct business on an ongoing day-to-day basis.

A)Operational information systems
B)Strategic information systems
C)Databases
D)Inter-organizational systems

Question 8

The data requirements of operational-level units are __________ because they depend heavily on standard operating procedures.

A)extensive,unique,and change frequently
B)extensive,routine,and rarely change
C)limited and customized
D)external,unstructured,and constant

Question 9

In__________,data can be accessed directly from operational databases and all transactions are processed as soon as they occur.

A)batch processing
B)online analytic processing (OLAP)
C)online transaction processing (OLTP)
D)POS processing

Question 10

Characteristics of projects that make them different from operations include each of the following except:

A)are unique undertakings
B)have a high degree of certainty with respect to costs and completion times
C)may compete and conflict with other business activities
D)involve a high risk of delay and failure,but has high profit potential or benefit

Question 11

Strategic level decisions are visionary and future-oriented.What types of data are specifically required for these decisions?

A)Real-time transactional and POS data.
B)Internal data sales about inventory levels,orders,and customer support.
C)External and internal data that has a one to three year time horizon.
D)External data about the economy,competitors,and business trends.

Question 12

Toyota implemented __________ inventory management to minimize holding costs by not taking possession of inventory until it is needed in the production process.

A)economic order quantity (EOQ)
B)just-in-time (JIT)
C)quality control (QC)
D)total quality management (TQM)

Question 13

Which is not one of the key characteristics of a TPS?

A)Large volumes of data are processed
B)Involves extensive computation complexity
C)Data sources are mostly internal,and the output is intended mainly for internal users and trading partners
D)Involves a high level of detailed raw data

Question 14

__________ deals with ordering,purchasing,receiving,and shipping activities.

A)Order fulfillment management
B)Production management
C)Logistics management
D)Vendor inventory management

Question 15

Data integrity with real-time systems involves __________,which means that if all steps in a transaction are not completed,then the entire transaction is cancelled.

A)atomicity
B)consistency
C)isolation
D)durability

Question 16

What types of data are specifically required for decisions made at the managerial or administrative level?

A)Real-time transactional and POS data.
B)Internal data sales about inventory levels,orders,and customer support.
C)External and internal data that has a one to three year time horizon.
D)External data about the economy,competitors,and business trends.

Question 17

At the __________ level,decisions are made to control the day-to-day activities.

A)operational
B)strategic
C)administrative
D)senior

Question 18

A company's payroll systems prepare and process the payroll data periodically,such as at the end of the work week.This type of processing is known as __________.

A)batch
B)real-time
C)online
D)data warehousing

Question 19

A company's inventory control system seeks to minimize each of the following cost categories except:

A)cost of labor
B)cost of holding inventory
C)cost of ordering and shipping
D)cost of inventory shortage

Question 20

Why did the largest Scandinavian food retailer group,Axfood AB,invest 200 million SEK (20.4 million Euros or US$25.6 million)in an IT platform?

A)To develop multi-cultural e-commerce capabilities
B)To fully integrate its diverse IT infrastructure to coordinate and connect its operations
C)To implement advanced technologies,including tags,RFID,and social media
D)To develop order fulfillment and logistics capabilities

Question 21

Effective __________ are critical to an organization's financial performance because fraud is easy to commit and hard to detect.

A)financial statement systems
B)auditing information systems
C)consolidated systems
D)compliance systems

Question 22

__________ at virtual worlds and social networking sites is very popular.It is done at most major sites,such as LinkedIn,MySpace,Facebook,Craigslist,and Second Life.

A)Risk management
B)Distribution
C)Recruitment
D)Forecasting

Question 23

A leading sales automation software is __________,which is especially helpful to small businesses,enabling them to rapidly increase sales and growth.

A)Speedpass.com
B)SoftwarePlus
C)PriceMaster Plus
D)Salesforce.com

Question 24

__________ tells organizations what funds they need and when,and how they will acquire them.

A)Billing
B)Credit management
C)Cash flow projection
D)Demand forecasting

Question 25

The best-known part of financial planning is the __________,which allocates the financial resources of an organization among participants,activities,and projects.

A)annual budget
B)income statement
C)balance sheet
D)owners equity

Question 26

Hewlett-Packard's U.S.Field Services Operations (USFO)Group has developed a paperless wage review system.The Web-based system uses __________ to manage quarterly reviews of HP's 15,000 employees.

A)analytics
B)intelligent agents
C)portals
D)XBRL

Question 27

Training activities that are part of HRM may involve __________ issues in recruiting and selecting employees and in evaluating performance,in part because these activities make use of private confidential information.

A)strategic
B)operational
C)ethical
D)budget

Question 28

Inaccurate __________ is the number-one reason why many small businesses go bankrupt.

A)billing
B)credit management
C)cash flow projection
D)demand forecasting

Question 29

__________ is a field that deals with policies,procedures,compliance requirements,and acquiring and keeping people in organizations.

A)Accounting
B)Human resources
C)Marketing
D)Management

Question 30

__________ is a programming language and an international standard for electronic transmission of business and financial information.It helps generate cleaner data,including written explanations and supporting notes.

A)SEC
B)FDIC
C)Excel
D)XBRL

Question 31

Sales volumes of products and services are largely determined by __________,which is also a major determinant of profit.

A)price
B)advertising
C)customer service
D)e-commerce

Question 32

Providing flexibility in selecting benefits is viewed as a competitive advantage in large organizations.Employees can self-register for specific benefits using menus from a __________ or __________.

A)corporate portal;voice technology
B)blog;wiki
C)social network;extranet
D)All of the above

Question 33

The Exxon Mobil Speedpass allows customers to fill their tanks by waving a token,embedded with an RFID device,at a gas-pump sensor.This is an example of __________.

A)data-driven marketing
B)a distribution channel
C)inventory control
D)a marketing channel

Question 34

Bernie Madoff committed a record-setting fraud scheme for many years __________ was passed to prevent financial fraud.

A)before the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
B)before the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
C)after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
D)after the Patriots Act

Question 35

Improved relationships with employees result in better retention and higher productivity.Therefore,companies invest in __________,which includes self-services such as tracking personal information and online training.

A)benefits management
B)employee relationship management
C)budgeting management
D)intelligent agents

Question 36

Marketing channel systems consist of each of the following systems except:

A)market intelligence
B)target marketing
C)sales
D)project

Question 37

__________ is the process of identifying the financing of assets,including software,that need to be acquired or developed;and comparing alternatives.

A)NPV
B)Capital budgeting
C)ROI
D)General ledger

Question 38

The major purpose of __________ is to protect and defend the accuracy and condition of the financial health of an organization.

A)auditing
B)budgeting
C)financial planning
D)ratio analysis

Question 39

Which is not one of the benefits of using budgeting software?

A)Reduce the time and effort involved in the budget process.
B)Make planning an ongoing continuous process.
C)Evaluate buy-versus-lease options
D)Automatically monitor exceptions for patterns and trends.

Question 40

Marketing ISs consist of __________ to gather,sort,analyze,evaluate,and distribute relevant,timely,complete,and accurate data for use by marketing decision makers to improve planning,implementation,and control.

A)software and hardware
B)procedures and policies
C)people,equipment,and procedures
D)channels

Question 41

KIA Motors introduced an intelligent QC system to analyze customer complaints so they could more quickly investigate and make corrections.The analysis was done with data mining tools.

Question 42

Data backups by themselves provide durability to protect data integrity in case of a system crash or other failure.

Question 43

Inaccurate cash flow projection led to the demise of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Question 44

Second Life has a special forum on training and learning using __________ that organizations can use for employees,partners,and customers.

A)videoconferencing
B)animations
C)simulations
D)virtual worlds

Question 45

A standard operating procedure,or SOP,is a loosely defined and suggested procedure for completing a process or function,such as a quality control process or function.

Question 46

The traveling circus Cirque du Soleil schedules and transports 20,000 performers and stage equipment and costumes,which are changing constantly.To manage HR,finance,logistics,and production scheduling applications,the company implemented __________ software,which enabled data sharing.

A)Cisco
B)IBM WebSphere Business Integration
C)SimMAGIC
D)Trovix Intelligent Search

Question 47

Human resources information systems (HRISs),which were implemented on company networks since the late 1990s,have been moved to intranets and __________;and HR apps are leased in __________ arrangements.

A)social networks;vendor
B)proprietary databases;ERM
C)cloud computing;software as a service (SaaS)
D)virtual worlds;intelligent agent

Question 48

Data validation techniques,such as validating that the zip code is consistent with the address,are used to detect and correct data entry errors.

Question 49

Reservation systems used by airlines and for concert tickets sales are online transaction processing (OLTP)systems because data are processed as soon as transactions occur,in real time.

Question 50

At the __________ level,managers,supervisors,and workers need detailed data,in real-time or near real-time,and the ability to respond to what they learn from functional ISs.

Question 51

At the strategic level,managers,supervisors,and workers need detailed data,in real-time or near real-time,and the ability to respond to what they learn from functional ISs.

Question 52

Each level of management has its own data needs,decision making responsibilities,and time horizons.

Question 53

Cash flow projection is the process of identifying the financing of assets,including software,that need to be acquired or developed.It includes comparing alternatives or evaluating buy-versus-lease options.

Question 54

Core operations are supported by TPSs that monitor,collect,store,process,and disseminate information for both financial and non-financial (e.g. ,hiring)transactions.

Question 55

HRM applications involve ethical issues,particularly in recruiting and selecting employees and in evaluating performance.

Question 56

The purpose of __________ is to identify deviations from objectives and plans as soon as possible in order to take corrective action.

Question 57

With XBRL,all of the company's financial data are collected,consolidated,published,and consumed without the need to use Excel spreadsheets.

Question 58

There is no shortage of customer and sales data,but there is a shortage of reliable,high-quality data and insight about how to use that data for better decisions that improve performance.

Question 59

Tracking sales,inventory levels,orders,and customer support are examples of control activities.

Question 60

At the operational level,middle-level managers make tactical decisions that focus on intermediate-term issues to fulfill the organization's mission,objectives,and strategy.

Question 61

Identify the three organizational and management levels.For each level,explain the types of decisions made,the focus and time horizon of those decisions,and the types of data that are needed for their decisions.

Question 62

Oracle,Siemens,and POM vendors offer a demand-driven __________ system,whose objective is to remove waste of any kind from production and operations.

Question 63

__________ is the analysis of data generated by visitors' behavior on a company's Web site.

Question 64

__________ consist of people,equipment and procedures to gather,sort,analyze,evaluate,and distribute relevant,timely,complete,and accurate data for use by marketing decision makers to improve their marketing planning,implementation,and control.

Question 65

In their effort to streamline HR processes and increase employee retention and productivity,companies are implementing Web-based __________ applications.

Question 66

Organizations distribute their products and services through a combination of electronic,mobile,and physical channels.List two examples of IT-supported distribution channels.

Question 67

What is a robot? Explain how industrial robots can be used in logistics,distribution,or materials handling.

Question 68

Good planning is necessary because a major reason organizations fail is their inability to forecast and/or secure sufficient __________.

Question 69

List three benefits of XBRL for organizations.

Question 70

__________ analysis uses standard financial models,such as net present value (NPV)and internal rate of return (IRR),to evaluate alternative investment decisions.

Question 71

At the managerial or administrative level,middle-level managers make __________ decisions that focus on intermediate-term issues to fulfill the organization's mission,objectives,and strategy.

Question 72

A __________ is collection of tasks to achieve a non-routine result,such as implementing a new JIT inventory management system.It has a defined beginning and end;a scope,resources,and a budget.