APICS Supply Planning 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which supply planning technique adjusts planned orders by offsetting lead time to ensure materials arrive exactly when needed?
- Safety stock calculation
- Lead time offsetting (Correct answer)
- Lot-for-lot sizing
- Pegging analysis
Correct answer: Lead time offsetting
Lead time offsetting shifts planned order releases backward in time by the item's lead time so materials arrive when needed for production.
Question 2: In a distribution requirements planning (DRP) system, what drives the replenishment orders from a central warehouse to branch locations?
- Economic order quantities set by management
- Net requirements generated by branch-level demand forecasts (Correct answer)
- Supplier delivery schedules
- Annual purchasing contracts
Correct answer: Net requirements generated by branch-level demand forecasts
DRP generates replenishment orders for the central warehouse based on net requirements calculated at each branch distribution point.
Question 3: A planner notices that planned orders frequently change between planning cycles, causing supplier disruptions. Which metric best quantifies this instability?
- Forecast accuracy percentage
- Planning nervousness index (Correct answer)
- Schedule attainment rate
- Fill rate variance
Correct answer: Planning nervousness index
Planning nervousness is the measure of how much the MRP-generated schedule changes between successive planning runs, often caused by small forecast changes.
Question 4: When using the fixed-period quantity (FPQ) lot-sizing rule, orders are placed:
- Whenever on-hand inventory drops below the reorder point
- At fixed intervals covering a predetermined number of periods of demand (Correct answer)
- For the exact quantity needed to cover net requirements in one period
- Based on the economic order quantity formula
Correct answer: At fixed intervals covering a predetermined number of periods of demand
FPQ aggregates demand across a fixed number of future periods into a single order placed at regular time intervals.
Question 5: Which of the following is the primary input that drives Material Requirements Planning (MRP) calculations?
- Supplier lead time data
- The Master Production Schedule (MPS) (Correct answer)
- Current inventory carrying costs
- Economic order quantity tables
Correct answer: The Master Production Schedule (MPS)
The MPS defines what end items need to be produced and when, serving as the top-level demand input that drives all MRP explosion calculations.
Question 6: A company wants to reduce supply plan volatility without using time fences. Which approach would most directly accomplish this?
- Increasing safety stock levels for all items
- Applying a demand filter or smoothing technique to the forecast (Correct answer)
- Switching from weekly to daily MRP regeneration
- Reducing the number of BOM levels
Correct answer: Applying a demand filter or smoothing technique to the forecast
Demand filtering or forecast smoothing reduces erratic signal changes that cause MRP to generate unstable, frequently revised planned orders.
Question 7: In supply planning, 'available-to-promise' (ATP) inventory is calculated as:
- On-hand inventory minus safety stock
- On-hand plus scheduled receipts minus customer orders booked before the next replenishment (Correct answer)
- Total planned production minus forecast demand
- Safety stock plus reorder point quantity
Correct answer: On-hand plus scheduled receipts minus customer orders booked before the next replenishment
ATP represents uncommitted inventory that can be promised to new customer orders, calculated as supply minus already-committed demand in each time bucket.
APICS Supply Planning 2
Which supply planning technique adjusts planned orders by offsetting lead time to ensure materials arrive exactly when needed?