Deck 4: Strategic Capacity Management

Question 1

Long-range capacity planning requires top management participation.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

A production facility works best when it focuses on a fairly limited set of production objectives.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The objective of strategic capacity planning is to provide an approach for determining the overall capacity level of labor-intensive resources.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The ultimate in plant flexibility is a one-hour-changeover time plant.

Question 5

Overtime and personnel transfers are solutions to capacity problems in the intermediate term.

Question 6

Best operating level is usually a multiple of the level of capacity for which a process was designed.

Question 7

Capacity planning is generally viewed in three time durations: Immediate, Intermediate, and Indeterminate.

Question 8

Capacity can be defined as the amount of available resource inputs relative to requirements for output over a particular period of time.

Question 9

A piece of equipment with twice the capacity of another piece typically costs twice as much to purchase and to operate.

Question 10

The basic notion of economies of scale is that as a plant gets larger and volume increases, the average cost per unit of output drops.

Question 11

Best operating level is the volume of output at which average unit cost is minimized.

Question 12

When evaluating capacity, managers need to consider both resource inputs and product outputs.

Question 13

The objective of strategic capacity planning is to determine the overall capacity level of capital intensive resources (including facilities, equipment, and overall labor force size) that best supports the company's long-range competitive strategy.

Question 14

The objective of strategic capacity planning is to determine the overall capacity level of capital intensive resources (including facilities, equipment, and overall labor force size) that best supports the company's short-range competitive strategy.

Question 15

The capacity utilization rate is found by dividing best operating level by capacity used.

Question 16

Making adjustments to eliminate the variance between planned and actual output is tied into intermediate range capacity planning.

Question 17

The problem of keeping demand sufficiently high to keep a large factory busy is a sales issue and not a diseconomy of scale.

Question 18

Capacity can be defined as the ability to hold, receive, store, or accommodate.

Question 19

At some point, the size of a growing plant can become too large and diseconomies of scale becomes a capacity planning problem.

Question 20

A production facility develops virtuosity and works best when it focused on a widely varied set of production objectives.

Question 21

In practice achieving a perfectly balanced plant is usually both impossible and undesirable.

Question 22

In a decision tree, the only time probabilities are applied to a decision node is when the decision is being made by someone else such as you customer or your competitor.

Question 23

The larger the capacity cushion the better.

Question 24

The ability to rapidly and inexpensively switch production from one product to another enables what are sometimes referred to as:

A) economies of scale.
B) economies of size.
C) economies of shape.
D) economies of scope.
E) economies of shipping.

Question 25

The capacity cushion is the ratio of capacity used to the best capacity level.

Question 26

Sharing capacity is a common source of external capacity.

Question 27

The smaller the capacity cushion the better.

Question 28

Economies of scope exist when multiple products can be produced at a lower cost in combination than they can separately.

Question 29

In decision tree analysis the time value of money is ignored because you are only concerned with cash costs.

Question 30

The probability of each occurrence at a decision tree chance node is the reciprocal of the number of possibilities at the chance node.

Question 31

A capacity cushion is the amount of capacity less than expected demand.

Question 32

In practice, achieving a perfectly balanced plant is usually desirable but impossible.

Question 33

Low rates of capacity utilization in service organizations are never appropriate.

Question 34

The frequency of adding to productive capacity should balance the costs of upgrading too frequently and the costs of upgrading too infrequently.

Question 35

In solving a decision tree problem, calculations start at the ends of the "branches" of the tree and work backwards to the base of the tree.

Question 36

Outsourcing is a common source of external capacity.

Question 37

Because services cannot be stored for later use, service managers consider time as one of their supplies or resources.

Question 38

Capacity flexibility means having the ability to rapidly increase or decrease production levels, or to shift production capacity quickly from one product or service to another.

Question 39

A decision tree problem does not need probabilities or payoffs to generate a solution.

Question 40

When a firm's design capacity is less than the capacity required to meet its demand, it is said to have a negative capacity cushion.

Question 41

Which of the following is not a step used in determining production capacity requirements?

A) Forecasting to predict product sales
B) Forecasting raw material usage
C) Projecting availability of labor
D) Calculating equipment and labor needs
E) Projecting equipment availability

Question 42

In designing a general service facility, capacity should be such that the target rate of service utilization (ρ), in order to get the best general-purpose design, should be

A) less than 0.6 (or 60%), so that your system would be within the zone of service with maximum possible utilization within that.
B) more than 0.6 (or 60%) so that your system would have a good utilization.
C) about 0.7 (70%) so that your system would be in the zone of service with maximum possible utilization within that.
D) more than 1.0 (100%) so that the servers are fully utilized, even if the customers had to wait a little.
E) between 0.9 (90%) and 1.0 (100%) so that the utilization of the system is ideal.

Question 43

If the best operating level of a piece of equipment is at a rate of 400 units per hour and the actual output during an hour is 300 units, which of the following is the capacity cushion?

A) 25 percent
B) 100 units per hour
C) 75 percent
D) 125 percent
E) 133 percent

Question 44

If the best operating level of a piece of equipment is at a rate of 400 units per hour and the actual output during an hour is 300 units, which of the following is the capacity utilization rate?

A) 0.75
B) 1.00
C) 1.33
D) 2.33
E) 300

Question 45

The capacity focus concept can be put into practice through a mechanism called which of the following?

A) Best operating level (BOL)
B) Plant within a plant (PWP)
C) Total quality management (TQM)
D) Capacity utilization rate (CUR)
E) Zero-changeover-time (ZXT)

Question 46

When deciding to add capacity to a factory which of the following need not be considered?

A) Maintaining system balance
B) The frequency of capacity additions
C) Use of external capacity
D) Immediate product demand
E) Availability of raw materials

Question 47

Planning service capacity involves consideration of the mean arrival rate and the mean service rate. When the mean arrival rate exceeds or gets too close to the mean service rate the quality of the service declines. The operating point is the ratio of mean service rate to mean arrival rate. According to the text, what is the best operating point for the typical service operation?

A) 120%
B) 100%
C) 90%
D) 70%
E) 57%

Question 48

Which of the following models uses a schematic model of the sequence of steps in a problem and the conditions and consequences of each step?

A) Probability indexing
B) Johnson's sequencing rule
C) Decision trees
D) Activity System Maps
E) Decision mapping

Question 49

What is an important difference between capacity planning in services as contrasted to capacity planning in manufacturing operations?

A) Time
B) Location
C) Demand volatility
D) Utilization impacts service quality
E) All of these

Question 50

At a decision point in a decision tree, which machine would you select when trying to maximize payoff when the anticipated benefit of selecting machine A is $45,000 with a probability of 90%; the expected benefit of selecting machine B is $80,000 with a probability of 50% and the expected benefit of selecting machine C is $60,000 with a probability of 75%?

A) Machine A
B) Machine B
C) Machine C
D) You would be indifferent between machines A and C
E) You would be indifferent between machines A and B

Question 51

Capacity planning that involves hiring, layoffs, some new tooling, minor equipment purchases, and subcontracting is considered as which one of the following planning horizons?

A) Intermediate range
B) Long range
C) Short range
D) Current
E) Upcoming

Question 52

Capacity planning involving consideration of production scheduling and inventory position is characterized by which one of the following time durations?

A) Intermediate-range
B) Long-range
C) Short-range
D) Current
E) Upcoming

Question 53

Compared with a service operation, a manufacturing operation's capacity is which of the following?

A) More dependent on time and location
B) Subject to more volatile demand fluctuations
C) Utilization more directly impacts quality
D) Demand can be smoothed by inventory policies
E) More capable of reacting to demand fluctuations

Question 54

The optimal utilization rate of a service operation is context specific. Planning for low utilization rates is appropriate when both the degree of uncertainty and the stakes are high as in emergency response services. Which of the following services should plan for a high utilization rate?

A) The fire department
B) An expensive restaurant
C) A hospital ambulance service
D) A stage performance
E) A customer help line

Question 55

Capacity planning involving acquisition or disposal of fixed assets such as buildings, equipment or facilities is considered as which one of the following planning horizons?

A) Intermediate-range
B) Long-range
C) Short-range
D) Current
E) Upcoming

Question 56

The way to build in greater flexibility in your workers is to do which of the following?

A) Pay higher wages to motivate a willingness to do a variety to tasks
B) Provide a broader range of training
C) Provide a wide variety of technology to augment workers skills
D) Institute a "pay for skills" program
E) Use part-time employees with specialized skills as needed

Question 57

If the actual output of a piece of equipment during an hour is 500 units and its best operating level is at a rate of 400 units per hour, which of the following is the capacity utilization rate?

A) 0.75
B) 1.00
C) 1.25
D) 1.33
E) 100

Question 58

Precise capacity design or the rate of service utilization (ρ), is application specific.

A) It could be close to 100% for a sports arena.
B) It could be as low as 0.5 for hospital emergency room.
C) As the degree of uncertainty in demand increases, higher ρ may be appropriate.
D) All of the above choices are correct.
E) Both it could be close to 100% for a sports arena and it could be as low as 0.5 for hospital emergency room.