Chapter 8 Business 111 (2020)

According to the Reaching Beyond Our Borders box, one way German companies are remaining competitive in industrial jobs is

• they rely solely on robotic technology and no longer use a human workforce.

• they send all of their manufacturing work to China.

• they implement apprenticeships to provide on-the-job education for young workers.

• they encourage students to leave school to take manufacturing jobs.

One strategy U.S. manufacturers have employed in order to become more competitive is

• increasing advertising budgets.

• creating technology foreign manufacturers depend on to increase effectiveness and efficiency.

• maintaining a distance relationship with suppliers in an effort to guard trade secrets.

• focusing on providing the lowest-priced products.

Manufacturing output in the United States continues to increase. The high unemployment of skilled workers who previously worked in the manufacturing sector

• can be attributed to manufacturing going green.

• is the result of untrained laborers.

• is strictly a factor of U.S. manufacturing companies outsourcing the majority of their work.

• can be reconciled by the fact that manufacturing is very efficient and requires fewer workers to produce the same amount, or even more output.

To strengthen its manufacturing base in the future, U.S. will have to

• continue to innovate.

• support students in high school and college interested in studying the arts.

• cut the amount of benefits offered to workers.

• uncover lower wage workers in the United States to compete with China.

In recent years, the service sector of the U.S. economy has

• become the low-wage sector of the U.S. economy.

• achieved extremely high productivity gains according to government reports.

• grown much more rapidly than the manufacturing sector.

• focused less on quality and more on reducing costs of production

Experts in operations management for service industry businesses stress

• training employees to please customers by anticipating their needs.

• training employees to always adhere to only one way of doing things.

• relying on one's individual operation as opposed to developing partnerships.

• using records from accounting to determine what business to go after.

Operations management in the service sector is focused on creating

• additional customer expectations.

• inexpensive ways to get things done.

• good experiences for those who use the service.

• jobs for the local community.

__________ is the specialized area of management that converts or transforms resources into goods and services.

• Resource engineering

• Operations management

• Intrapreneuring

• Logistics management

For most service businesses, the quality standard has become

• less important than it is for manufacturing businesses.

• providing a competitive level of service at the lowest cost.

• providing prompt and predictable service.

• pleasing customers by anticipating their needs.

Oakley, a freshman just starting college, hasn't decided on his major. He is looking into operations management and is also exploring job opportunities in this field. Which of the following statements about jobs for operations management majors is most accurate? If he majors in operations management, Oakley will

• have limited job opportunities because operations management positions are only available in the slowly growing manufacturing sector.

• acquire skills and knowledge that are valuable to firms in both the manufacturing and service sectors.

• find plenty of employment opportunities in the government and education, but not very many in the private sector.

• have plenty of job offers, but they will mainly be in low-wage positions in the service sector.