DBA Operations Management and Supply Chain Strategy 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What does 'sustainability in supply chain management' primarily involve?
- Maximizing throughput at the lowest cost regardless of environmental impact
- Integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations throughout the supply chain (Correct answer)
- Ensuring uninterrupted supply continuity only
- Reducing the number of suppliers to simplify management
Correct answer: Integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations throughout the supply chain
Sustainable supply chain management incorporates ESG practices — reducing carbon footprint, ensuring ethical labor practices, and promoting responsible sourcing throughout the chain.
Question 2: In operations management, what is 'capacity planning'?
- Training employees to increase personal capacity
- The process of determining the production capacity needed to meet changing product demand (Correct answer)
- Planning the physical layout of a factory floor
- Assessing the capacity of IT data storage systems
Correct answer: The process of determining the production capacity needed to meet changing product demand
Capacity planning determines the maximum level of work activity an organization can complete over a period, ensuring resources match demand levels.
Question 3: Which supply chain management concept advocates sharing real-time data, synchronized production, and continuous replenishment between retailers and suppliers?
- Traditional vendor-managed inventory (VMI)
- Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) (Correct answer)
- Just-in-Time (JIT) manufacturing
- Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking
Correct answer: Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR)
CPFR is a collaborative supply chain initiative where trading partners jointly develop forecasts and replenishment plans using shared data to improve supply chain efficiency.
Question 4: What is 'outsourcing' in a strategic operations context, and what is a key risk?
- Bringing previously external functions in-house; risk is overinvestment
- Contracting external parties to perform business functions; key risk is loss of core competency control (Correct answer)
- Eliminating product lines to focus on services; risk is revenue decline
- Licensing technology to competitors; risk is price erosion
Correct answer: Contracting external parties to perform business functions; key risk is loss of core competency control
Outsourcing transfers business functions to external providers to reduce costs or access expertise, but risks include loss of control, quality issues, and erosion of core capabilities.
Question 5: What is 'throughput' in operations management?
- Total fixed costs per production cycle
- The rate at which a system produces its final products or services (Correct answer)
- The average inventory turnover per quarter
- The number of employees in the production department
Correct answer: The rate at which a system produces its final products or services
Throughput is the rate at which a process or system converts inputs into finished outputs, and is a key performance metric in operations and Theory of Constraints.
Question 6: In supply chain risk management, what is 'supply chain resilience'?
- Keeping all supply chain activities in-house
- The ability of a supply chain to anticipate, avoid, withstand, adapt to, and recover from disruptions (Correct answer)
- Eliminating all single-source suppliers immediately
- Using only domestic suppliers to avoid geopolitical risk
Correct answer: The ability of a supply chain to anticipate, avoid, withstand, adapt to, and recover from disruptions
Supply chain resilience enables organizations to maintain continuity, recover quickly, and adapt supply chains in response to disruptions like pandemics, natural disasters, or geopolitical events.
DBA Operations Management and Supply Chain Strategy 3
What does 'sustainability in supply chain management' primarily involve?