Operations and Information Systems
Exam 1 Study Guide
Fall, 2009

Format - The exam will be worth 100 points --
(15 Points) 5 “Fill-in-the-blank” quantitative problems
(10 Points) 5 True/False Questions
(20 Points) 10 quantitative/qualitative multiple choice questions
(40 Points) Three quantitative problems
(15 Points) Take Home short answer essay questions:

Take-Home Short Answer questions on the following Article:
IT Doesn’t Matter by Nicholas Carr; Harvard Business Review; May2003, Vol. 81 Issue 5, p41-49 (In course pack)
The article IT Doesn’t Matter discusses information technology’s (IT’s) role in modern organizations. Answer the following questions in 1-2 typed, double-spaced pages (total pages for all three; not each one!):
. To what extent do you agree with Carr’s assertion than companies should focus on controlling IT costs?
. Regarding implementing information systems, why is it prudent to be a follower rather than a leader?
. Give an argument why Carr is wrong.

For the exam you may use one side of an 8 ½ x 11 sheet for formulas and other notes.

Note: The topics below can help you focus your thinking and time regarding studying for the exam. Topics that we covered in class that are not listed below may also be covered on the exam. The quantitative problems will be drawn from problems similar to the homework problems.

Chapter 1
· What are some of the competitive dimensions for operations management?
· What are some tradeoffs that operations managers face?
· How does operations strategy relate to overall business strategy and other functional strategies?
· What is the difference between order qualifiers and order winners?
· What are the differences between manufactured products and service products?
· What are some of the major current issues that operations mangers face?
Chapter 3
· What are various time frames for capacity management decisions and how do they differ?
· What are economies of scale?
· How does one calculate capacity utilization rates?
· What is a bottleneck in a process?
· Understand the impact of setups on capacity and how capacity increases with batch size.
· Be able to calculate and apply the capacity given a batch size: Capacity = Batch size / (Setup time – (Batch size x Time per Unit))
· Knowing the capacity for an operation and the bottleneck operation and be able to calculate the “best” batch and calculating expected returns or costs, and “folding back” to get the best decision path.
· What is inventory? Flow time? Flow rate?
· What is Little’s Law? How can we apply it?
· Understand how to use decision trees to solve problems – including: Drawing a tree given a verbal problem statement; calculating expected “payoffs” for chance nodes; “folding back” to obtain the best strategy
Chapter 4
· Understanding various types of production processes and when each is best used: Project, Workcenter , Manufacturing Cell, Assembly Line, Continuous Process.
· Understand the product/process matrix.
· Understand how to do problems using break even analysis, including: at what volume does one break even; at what volume does one choose to “make” rather than “buy” from a vendor; at what volume does one choose “Machine A” vs. “Machine B”.
· Given a sequence of tasks, how does one “balance” and assembly line – understand how to calculate cycle time; calculate the minimum number of workstations; and assign tasks to workstations to balance the line.
Chapter 5
· Understand the Service System design matrix
· Understand how to interpret the output of the queuing template
· Understand how to calculate service costs, waiting costs, and total costs
· Understand how to use the Excel Queuing Template to solve queuing problems comparing various alternatives with respect to improvement in queue characteristics and/or reduction in total costs
· Understand why in a queuing system, why might a small change in the arrival or service rate result in a much larger change in an output characteristic?
· What do service levels have to do with queuing systems?
· What is the utilization rate in a queuing system? Why must the utilization rate be less than 1?
· How does Little’s Equation apply to queuing systems?