IB BUSINESS (5.1 - 5.2)

What is operations management?

• The process of managing a company’s finances
• The process of planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling activities to transform inputs into outputs
• The function responsible for advertising products
• The department that handles human resources

Which of the following are the primary inputs in the transformation process?

• Land, labour, capital, and enterprise
• Sales, marketing, finance, and HR
• Finished goods and services
• Product, price, place, promotion

How do goods differ from services?

• Goods are intangible; services are tangible
• Goods are tangible; services are intangible
• Goods are produced by machines; services by humans
• There is no difference between them

Capital-intensive production is characterized by:

• High labour costs relative to capital costs
• High use of machinery and equipment compared to labour
• Minimal use of technology
• Low fixed costs

Labour-intensive production is best described as:

• Production with high machinery costs
• Production that relies mostly on human labour and skills
• Automated production with little human input
• Production with high capital investment

What does “adding value” in operations management mean?

• Increasing the production cost without improving quality
• Enhancing a product so customers perceive it as more valuable
• Reducing the product’s features
• Standardizing the production process

Operations management affects which other business functions?

• Only marketing
• Marketing, finance, and human resources
• Only finance and production
• Only HR and IT

What is job production?

• Producing identical items in a continuous flow
• Producing goods in small batches
• Producing a unique, custom-made product or service for a specific customer
• Mass-producing standardized items

An advantage of job production is:

• Low production costs per unit
• High flexibility and customization
• Economies of scale
• Fast production speed

A key disadvantage of job production is:

• The inability to customize products
• High labour and production costs
• Over-automation of processes
• Excessive economies of scale