MGMT Last 3 Chapters – Flashcards
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Moore's law accounts for the rapid increase in power and reduction in both size and price of computer equipment over the past 35 years.
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True
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In today's hypercompetitve business environment, capital (i.e., money) is still more important than information for businsess success.
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False
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Raw data contaim useful information that communicate a clear and readily understandable messge to the person for which the data were gathered.
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False
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Information has strategic importance for organizations because it can be used to obtain first-mover advantage and to sustain a competitive advantage once it has been created.
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True
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According to the resource-based view of information technology, sustainable competitve advantage occurs when information technology adds value, is different across firms, and is difficult to create or acquire.
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True
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Acquisition cost is the cost of turning raw data into usable information.
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False
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Information retrieval is a quick and easy process.
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False
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Bar codes and document scanners are common methods of electonically capturing data.
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True
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Ther term "data mining" refers to the process of discovering unknown patterns and relationships in large amounts of data.
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True
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unsupervised data mining is unethical.
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False
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Data mining typically splits a data set in half, finds patterns in one half, and then tests the validity of those patterns by trying to find them again in the second half of the data set.
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True
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A data warehouse stores raw data that has been collected from a variety of sources for later use.
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False
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Protecting information is the process of ensusring that data are reliably and consistently retrievable in a unsable format for authorized users, but no one else.
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True
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Data mining often reveals data clusters where three or more database elements occur together.
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True
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Data encryption transforms data into complex, scrambled digital codes that can only be unencrypted by authorized users who process uniquw decryption keys.
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True
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Firewalls can only protect personal computers and network servers connected to the corporate network.
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True
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Three kinds of information technology are used by executives, managers, and workers inside the company to access and share information. They are executive information systems, intranets and portals.
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True
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Electronic data interchange (EDI), extranents, and the Internet have proven to provide such a competitive advantage that managers are scrambling to find ways to use them in their own companies.
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True
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It is important understand that DSS programs should not replace managerial decision making.
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True
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Most expert systems work by using a collection of " ifthen" rules to sort through information and recommend a course of action.
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True
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The term _______ refers to facts and figures depicted in a manner that is not usable.
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raw data
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The first company to use new information technology to substantially lower costs or differtiate products or services often gains:
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first-mover advantage
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Why is information strategically important for organizations?
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Information can be used to obtain first mover advantage
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In 1921, realtor Billy Ingram closed his company and opened White Castle restaurants to sell hamburgers. In 1921, hamburgers were thought to be made from rotten beef and not fit human consumption. Ingram ground fresh beef in front of customers to prove it was safe and was the first to successfully sell hamburgers to the middle class. Today ingram is credited as the founder of the fast-food industry. Understanding that Midwesterners wanted clean, convenient food when they were away from home was the information Ingram used to:
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create a first-mover advantage
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Which of the following is one of the critical issues companies need to address in order to sustain a competitive advantage through information technology?
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Is the firm's use of information technology difficult for another company to create or buy?
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The key to sustaining competitive advantage is:
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using information technology to continuously improve and support the core functions of a business
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A company that wants to create a first-mover advantage needs to know that such a strategy can result in:
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significant expense
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According to the resource-based view of information technology, sustainable competitive advantage:
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is accurately described by all of these
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Which of the following is NOT a source of significant costs associated with useful information?
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mobilization
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To be ________, information must be available when needed to define a problem or begin to identify possible solutions.
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timely
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______ costs are the costs of turning a raw data into usable information.
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Processing
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On the television show Threshold, there are people who monitor all of the police report from all over the United States looking for patterns within the data that may indicate alien activity. The _____ costs of gathering this data are high because of the large number of people required to obtain this data.
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acquisition
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______ costs are the costs of transmitting information from one place to another.
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Communication
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Which of the following statement about the characteristics and costs of useful information is true?
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For information to be useful, it has to be accurate, of sufficient quantity, pertinent, and available when you need it.
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The two basic methods of capturing information are:
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manual and electonic
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The manual capture of information is:
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all of these
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A large metropolitan hospital that wished to keep track of wheelchairs, gurneys, and other expensive equipment that regularly disappeared from inventory because some hurried employee put it in a closet or elsewhere for safekeeping could use ____ to locate and recover missing property.
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radio frequency identification (RFID) tags
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Because they are inexpensive and easy to use, ________, which convert printed text and pictures into digital images, have become an increasingly popular method for electronically capturing data.
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electronic scanners
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags:
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are accurately described by none of these
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The two types of data mining are:
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supervised and unsupervised
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On the television show Threshold, there are people who monitor all of the police reports from all over the United States looking for patterns within the data that may indicate alien activity. These computer people are engaged in:
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data mining
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Experts say magazines are uniquely positioned to take advantage of e-commerce because most already posses the type of data required to create an effective online campaign. Subscriber's demographics and psychographics--where readers live, their housing situation, how they like to shop, etc.---are indicating which individuals will respond to Internet offers. By using their databases, magazine publishers can discover _______ patterns.
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affinity
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By examining checkout data, supermartkets have learned that people who are buying beer typically also buy a bag of salty snacks. As a result of this _________, supermarkets often place displays of beer near the chips and pretzel aisle.
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data mining
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By examining checkout data, supermartkets have learned that people who are buying beer often also buy a bag of salty snacks. The use of data mining led to the discovery of a(n) ________ pattern.
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affinity
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Data mining is the:
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process of discovering unknown patterns and relationships in large amounts of data
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Unsupervised data mining can be used to recognize ______ patterns.
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affinity, sequence, and predictive
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Which of the following statements about data mining is true?
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Data mining typically uses data from a data warehouse
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data clusters:
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occur when three or more database elements occur together in a significant way
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To properly secure data and date networkd, a manager should use all of the following EXCEPT:
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roadblocks
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Which of the following is NOT an example of a security problem that may threaten data and data networks?
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mob flashing
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Two critical steps are required to make sure that data can be accessed by authorized users and no one else. They are:
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authentication and authorization
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If you've watched such shows are Alias on television, you have seen super spies use their fingerprint to gain access to critical information. You have seen:
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biometrics used for authentication
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Although firewalls can protect personal computers and network service connected to the corporate network, people away from their offices who interact with their company networks via the Internet face a safety risk.
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virtual private networks
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According to the "Doing the Right Thing" box, which of the following statements will help you maintain a strong password system?
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Change your password every six weeks
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The goal of an executive information system (EIS) is to:
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provide accurate, complete, relevant, and timely information to managers
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The establishment of _______ is an information security procedure that encrypts Internet data at both ends of the transmission process.
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virtual private networks
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Public key encryption can be used to:
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protect files sent over the Internet
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_______ are a hybrid of executive information systems and intranets.
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Corporate portals
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Snyder's of Hanover is the world's second biggest pretzel maker. It developed a(n) ________ to allow its more than 50 departments heads and executive managers to use a Web browser to view sales results and distribution plans with a single click. It will also help executives size up cost-cutting opportunities on demand instead of waiting until the end of the quarter or year before ramping up production of a popular pretzel brand or paring distribution routes where necessary.
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corporate portal
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Which of the following statements can be used to help explain the growing popularity of intranets?
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All of these statements can be used to help explian the growing popularity of intranets
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The best-selling executive information systems can be used to:
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do all of these
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________ use standardized protocols to describe data from one company in such a way that those data can automatically be read, understood, and processed by different computer systems in another company.
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Web services
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Independent owners of Ace Hardwae Stores can access data on new products, store layouts, pricing strategies and customer promotions by using a(n) _________ to gain Web-based access to a portion of the Ace Hardware Corporate network.
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extranet
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A(n) __________ allows companies to exchange information and conduct transactions by purposely providing outsiders with direct, Web browser-based access to authorized parts of a company's intranet.
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extranet
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Companies that use electronic data interchange, extranets, and the Internet to gain a competitive advantage have experienced:
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decreased costs
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Just a teaspoon too much or too little of a single ingredient can turn a great cake into a mediocre cake. The ability to know just how much too add, how long to stir, and how the cake should smell when it is cooked is a skill that a long-time baker would have. Through the use of ______, others can capture this specialized knowledge.
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expert systems
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Why is productivity important to countries?
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a. Productivity matters because it produces a higher standard of living.
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When a CEO of a company says that TQM 's payoff comes when everyone shares solutions with others, the CEO is promoting which characteristic of TQM?
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e. teamwork
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According to the TQM strategy, what should be a company's primary goal?
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a. customer focus and satisfaction
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A company decided to reduce its inventory by lowering their prices. The plan to get rid of excessive inventory was so successful that the company found itself completely sold out in just a couple of days. In other words, The company experienced ____.
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b. a stockout
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The average time between breakdowns (for machinery) is referred to as ___?
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d. reliability
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At their core, companies are ____ systems that combine inputs such as labor, raw materials, capital, and knowledge to produce finished products and other types of output.
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c. production
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Companies relying on a trucking company providing just-in-time (JIT) transportation would _____?
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e. expect the chemical and dry bulk products to be delivered as they are needed by the production line
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Which of the following statements about ISO 9000 is true?
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c. To become ISO 9000 certified, companies must show that they are following their own procedures.
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Which of the following statements about ISO 9000 is true?
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a. ISO 9000 certification may be suspended or canceled if companies fail a periodic audit following their initial certification.
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In general, managers should use ____ to directly compare their overall level of productivity to that of their competitors, and ____ to analyze the contributions of individual components to that overall productivity.
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c. multifactor productivity; partial productivity
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The ability to consistently perform a service well is referred to as service ____.
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b. reliability
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____ is a measure of performance that indicates how many inputs it takes to produce or create an output.
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e. Productivity
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The ____ of a maker of cloth dolls would include over 200 yards of fabric, 100 yards of ribbon, a box of 500 wiggle eyes, stuffing, 20 dolls in various stages of completion, and 15 completed dolls.
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e. inventory
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The product quality characteristic of ____ is defined as the mean time before product failure.
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d. durability
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Continuous improvement is typically associated with ____.
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d. a reduction in variation and higher customer satisfaction
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A company has purchased new software which will allow its employees to extend the electronic support capabilities and parts-ordering efficiencies the company offers its customers. The company's improved ____ should lead to improved employee satisfaction.
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b. service capability
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Which of the following is NOT a kind of cost associated with maintaining an inventory?
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a. amortization
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Which of the following quality characteristics can be applied to both goods and services?
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b. reliability
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Pamela Katian makes cloth dolls, which she sells to friends and relatives. Her total inventory includes over 200 yards of fabric, 100 yards of ribbon, a box of 500 eyes, stuffing, 20 dolls in various stages of completion, and 15 completed dolls. How many items are in Katian's work-in-process inventory?
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d. 20
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____ productivity is a measure of performance that indicates how much of a particular kind of input it takes to produce an output.
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d. Partial
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Most companies define product ____ in terms of how easy or difficult it is to fix a product.
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b. serviceability
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Many organizations rely on teaming as a key to their productivity and credit their use of teams with performance improvements in such areas as efficiency and quality. This statement is another way to illustrate ____.
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e. how teamwork can result in total quality management
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A company that embroiders t-shirts, uses 15,000 plain t-shirts annually. The optimal order quantity is 500 shirts. The company embroiders approximately 150 shirts daily. Using the ____ calculations, the company knows it should place an order approximately every 3 days.
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d. economic order quantity
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A product's quality is determined by its ____.
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b. durability, reliability, and serviceability
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____ is the regulatory process of establishing standards that will achieve organizational goals, comparing actual performance to those standards, and then, if necessary, taking corrective action to restore performance to those standards.
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Control
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In the traditional control systems used at most companies, ____ measures are used to assess performance.
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financial
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____ is a control method that encourages managers to look beyond traditional measures to evaluate four different perspectives on company performance.
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Balanced Scorecard
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Which of the following statements about the Balanced Scorecard approach to control is true?
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All of the perspectives examined by the Balanced Scorecard approach are of equal importance to a company's success.
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An organization that relies heavily on ____ controls is likely to be highly resistant to change and slow to respond to customers and competitors.
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bureaucratic
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Caterpillar announced plans to cut its production of construction equipment due to forecasted increases in steel prices. By discovering the problem with product inputs and letting customers know that its output will fall short, Caterpillar used ____ controls.
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feedforward
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When Marriott decided to improve the quality of service offered to customers, it asked special corporate guests to comment on the good and bad issues of their stay and also to tell what the competition is doing that is better than Marriott. The Marriott acted accordingly. In other words, it used ____.
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benchmarking
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C&K Brewing Company is a microbrewery in western Canada. It produces Maiden's Honor brand ale, a dark beer called Warrior's Cry, and several seasonal beers under the brand name Hearthfire. Its owners George Claiborne and Pete Kunard both believe the brewery's competitive advantage comes from the duo having hired an experienced German brewmaster to oversee the production of its beers. The brewmaster checks all of the ingredients before they are mixed together to make sure that each component is of the highest possible quality and rejects those that are not. After the beer has brewed, the brewmaster runs several tests on the beer to check for taste and clarity and throws out barrels that are cloudy and/or bitter. Refer to C Brewing. The brewmaster is in charge of which classical management function?
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controlling
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A company makes only one product. The company is carefully evaluating what it learned in becoming such a success to see if it could use the same strategy to expand internationally. Which perspective of the Balanced Scorecard is this manufacturer emphasizing?
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innovation and learning perspective
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An article on public libraries contained the following statement: "The Balanced Scorecard helps organize and run the library according to a specific strategic plan, while demonstrating the library's value to the community as a whole." When dealing with the customer area of the Balanced Scorecard, the article advised librarians to use customer surveys. Why might this be a poor strategy to use?
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Customer surveys are typically misleading, skewed to positive feedback.
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____ control is a method of gathering information about performance deficiencies after they occur.
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Feedback
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Which of the following statements about economic value added (EVA) is true?
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The final step in calculating EVA is to compute the net operating profit after taxes.
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According to the text, which of the following levels produces the greatest minimization of waste?
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waste prevention and reduction
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A large university library has decided to make it nearly impossible for all but the most renowned Civil War experts to access their Civil War collection. The librarian in charge of this collection feels that this new policy will adversely influence the use of the collection in research on the experiences of everyday people during the war. This is an example of the use of control creating ____.
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suboptimization
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Imagine a manufacturer that has a 99 percent error-free production rate and decides it wants 100 percent error-free production. Its management needs to examine ____ to determine if the costs of increased controls outweigh the benefits of error-free production.
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regulation costs
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Control is a(n) ____ process.
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standardized, periodic, and cybernetic
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The term ____ refers to facts and figures that are in an unusable form.
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raw data
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Because they are inexpensive and easy to use, ____, which convert printed text and pictures into digital images, have become an increasingly popular method for capturing data electronically.
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electronic scanners
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Intranets are ____.
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private company networks that allow employees to easily access, share, and publish information using Internet software
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The establishment of ____ is an information security procedure that encrypts Internet data at both ends of the transmission process.
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virtual private networks
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could use data it has collected from millions of suspected drug-related adverse event reports and other electronic medical information to identify a pattern of adverse drug events in a specific population. This data collected by the FDA would be held in a(n) ____.
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data warehouse
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Using ____ data mining, the user usually begins by telling the data mining software to look and test for specific patterns and relationships in a data set.
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supervised
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The first company to use new information technology to substantially lower costs or differentiate products or services often gains ____.
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first-mover advantage
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Unsupervised data mining is particularly good at identifying ____.
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all of these
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The three principles that characterize TQM are continuous improvement, teamwork, and ____.
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customer focus and satisfaction
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In TQM terms, ____ is an organizational goal to provide products or deliver services that meet or exceed customers' expectations.
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customer satisfaction
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____ is a deviation in the form, condition, or appearance of a product from the quality standard for that product.
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Variation
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Companies relying on a trucking company providing just-in-time (JIT) transportation would _____?
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expect the chemical and dry bulk products to be delivered as they are needed by the production line
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ISO 14000 ____.
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is a series of international standards for managing, monitoring, and minimizing an organization's harmful effect on the environment
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When a CEO of a company says that TQM 's payoff comes when everyone shares solutions with others, the CEO is promoting which characteristic of TQM?
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teamwork
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The lowest degree of processing occurs in ____ operations, where a company orders parts and assembles standardized products before receiving customer orders.
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make-to-stock
