Scenario-Based Quiz

For each of the following scenarios, state whether descriptive, predictive, or prescriptive

analytics tools would most likely be used:
 
1. The chief financial officer for a small manufacturing firm would like to estimate the net
profit that the firm could expect over the next three years. Which analytics tools would most
likely be used for this scenario?
1) Descriptive
2) Predictive
3) Prescriptive

2. A human resource manager needs to understand whether the company's current

employee mix has the skills and capabilities needed to achieve the goals laid out by a new
strategic plan. Which analytics tools would most likely be used for this scenario? 
1) Predictive
2) Descriptive
3) Prescriptive

3. A financial advisor would like to develop the best mix of stocks, bonds, and other
investments for a client to achieve a comfortable level of risk. Which analytics tools would
most likely be used for this scenario?
1) Prescriptive
2) Predictive
3) Descriptive

4. A large service firm wishes to determine how to invest the cash received from its financial
product to achieve the best return. Which analytics tools would most likely be used for
this scenario?
1) Prescriptive
2) Predictive
3) Descriptive

5. A logistics company wants to better understand the relative profitability of its numerous
customers over the past three years. Which analytics tools would most likely be used for
this scenario?
1) Descriptive
2) Prescriptive
3) Predictive

6. A disaster relief agency needs to allocate its budget for the next year among various relief
efforts and programs. Which analytics tools would most likely be used for this scenario?
1) Predictive
2) Descriptive
3) Prescriptive
7. An automobile company would like to determine the number of vehicles it could sell next
year based on the proposed price. Which analytics tools would most likely be used for
this scenario?
1) Predictive
2) Descriptive
3) Prescriptive

8. A baseball team would like to set ticket prices for different sections in its stadium to attract
the highest number of fans throughout the season. Which analytics tools would most likely
be used for this scenario?
1) Predictive
2) Prescriptive
3) Descriptive

A supermarket has been experiencing long lines during peak periods of the day. The problem
is noticeably worse on certain days of the week, and the peak periods sometimes differ
according to the day of the week. There are usually enough workers on the job to open all
cash registers. The problem the supermarket manager faces is knowing when to call some of
the workers who are stocking shelves up to the front to work the checkout counters. Use this
information to answer the given questions.

Part 1
9. How might business analytics help the supermarket manager? Select all that apply.
A) model might be developed to find the number of checkout counters to open to
ensure a reasonable wait time or maximize customer throughput.
B) The manager can use analytics by examining historical data on customer flow during
each hour of each day of the week and month.
C) The manager can use analytics to schedule the minimum necessary or predicted
number of workers for cash registers in order to ensure that none of the cash
registers are idle.
D) Business analytics can help to predict customer demand at the checkout counters and
determine the appropriate number to have open.
E) A model can be developed to forecast customer demand for a set amount of time in
the future.

Part 2
10. What data would be needed when developing the model to facilitate good decisions?
Select all that apply.
 
A) Day of the week
B) Number of customers served per hour
C) Time of day
D) Customer height
Scenario-Based Quiz

One of the earliest operations research groups during World War II was conducting a study
on the optimum utilization of Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft during the Battle of Britain.
Whenever one of these planes returned from battle, the locations of the bullet holes on it
were carefully plotted. By repeatedly recording these data over time, and studying the
clusters of data, the group was able to estimate the regions of the aircraft most likely to be
hit by enemy gunfire, with the objective of reinforcing these regions with special armor.
What difficulties are involved with this study?
Part 1
11. Choose the correct answer below.

a. The locations of bullet holes may change if the enemy changes tactics.

b. The study was only observing planes that returned safely. Planes that were shot down
could not be analysed.

c. The locations of bullet holes may not be precise, due to the need for repairing aircraft so
they could be sent up again.

d. Reinforcing these regions of the aircraft would make it more difficult to record locations of
bullet holes in the future.

Part 2
12. Which of the statements below can be attributed to supply chain analytics?

a. Methods used only by logistics organisations to extract data from interconnected systems
b. Consolidation of moving systems involved in cleansing of data
c. The ability to make data-driven informed decisions based on a summary of trusted
interconnected data, uncovering patterns and often uses visualisation in form of graphs,
bar charts and other means
d. Used by organisations to solve complex questions in natural language

13. How does blockchain technology provide supply chain solutions?

a. Provides very fast transactional speed in every sector of the supply chain
b. Assist companies with transparent and accurate end-to-end tracking of all transactions
from manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retailing right through to the
consumer
c. Solves fundamental issues of trust and dishonesty between people
d. Reduces the organisation's administrative costs only
14. How does blockchain make the supply chain more efficient?
a. By using smart contracts tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) codes
which use electromagnetic fields to identify and track items
b. By sourcing procurement right from the manufacturer to the customer
c. With the use of Customer relationship management (CRM)
d. All of the above

15. What are the key benefits of using Business intelligence tools?

a. Combines automated data integration, visualisation, and analytics in a single solution

b. Determines which product promotions are the most effective with which channels.
c. Synchronise demand planning with production and adjust to changes accordingly
d. All the above

Operations - Forecasting
16. Which one is a quantitative forecasting method?
a) moving averages
b) jury of executive
c) delphi method
d) market survey

17. The difference between actual demand and forecasted value is called:
a) Forecast accuracy
b) Forecast size
c) Forecast error
d) Moving average

18. Sales of Bluetooth headphones at EarStore in Welwyn over the past 3 months have
been 52, 48, and 59 units. Forecast the next month`s demand using 3-month moving
average.
a) 50 units
b) 53 units
c) 59 units
d) 159 units

19. In 2020, an e-bike producer predicted the following year`s demand (i.e., Year 2021) for
1200 e-bikes. However, actual demand for Year 2021 was 1350 bikes. Using a smoothing
constant of a = 0.3, forecast demand for Year 2022 using the exponential smoothing model.
a) 1155 bikes
b) 1200 bikes
c) 1245 bikes
d) 1305 bikes
20. The following data come from the latest projections - see the table.

Week Forecast Actual

Please calculate overall forecast error Values Values
using Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD)
1 245 261
measure.
a. 4 2 258 241
b. 12 3
c. 20 251 254
d. 36

Queuing Theory
21. Which of the following is NOT a key operating characteristic for a queuing system?
a) discount rate
b) arrival rate
c) service rate
d) utilisation rate

22. Which of the following is NOT an assumption in a single-server queueing model?

a) Arrivals are random and independent of each other
b) Service times are fixed and dependent of each other
c) Arrivals are served on first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis
d) There is unlimited capacity

23. A watch repairer takes an average of 20 mins per job. 2 jobs arrive randomly on
average every hour. What is probability that the repairer is busy?
a) 0.33
b) 0.45
c) 0.66
d) 0.75

24. Arrivals to a florist are Poisson distribution at a rate of 5 per hour. The average service
rate is 8 per hour. What is the average number of customers in the system?
a) 0.66
b) 1
c) 1.66
d) 2
25. Arrivals to a florist are Poisson distribution at a rate of 5 per hour. The average service
rate is 8 per hour. What is the average time spent in the queue?
e) 0.20 hours
f) 0.60 hours
g) 1.2 hours
h) 2 hours
 Inventory Management

26. Extra units in inventory to help reduce stockouts are called:

a) reorder point
b) safety stock
c) economic order quantity
d) all of the above.

27. The method which divides on-hand inventory into three classes is called:
a) reorder point
b) demand forecasting
c) economic order quantity
d) ABC analysis

28. The cost to keep or carry inventory in stock is called:

a) holding cost
b) ordering cost
c) staff cost
d) setup cost

29. The annual demand for glasses at Kino Shop is 5,000 units. Their setup or ordering cost
is £25 per order and the holding cost per unit per year is £4. Calculate the optimal number
of units (glasses) to order using economic order quantity formula.
a) 100 units
b) 250 units
c) 500 units
d) 1000 units

30. CATAK football team`s store has a demand for 1800 jerseys per year. The store operates
a 150-day working year. The delivery of an order from a local manufacturer takes 10
working days. Please determine the reorder point without a safety stock.
a) 50 units
b) 100 units
c) 120 units
d) 180 u
Read the following scenario and answer questions 1-3 based on the given information:
Logi Service is a provider of logistic services for few SME organisations. In recent times due to
many successful marketing initiatives, they have been successful in securing many service
contracts with reputed retailers in the UK. In order to support this operation, the
management changed the business processes radically to increase delivery times and to
enhance customer experience. Some of the other changes include investing in digital
technologies including data analytics software, easy to operate digital handheld operators
and a state-of-the-art web interface for end customers as well as its direct clients. The
employees currently are extremely happy with existing processes and the teams they belong
to. The new change requires many employees to improve their digital skills as many lack
digital literacy skills.
31. According to Kotter’s change management process which would be the first and last
step that should be carried out to support the above change

a) Institute change, communicate the vision

b) Create a sense of urgency, create quick wins
c) Create a sense of urgency, institute change
d) Develop and communicate the vision, institute change

32. Which of the following could cause resistance to change

a) Technology Training offered by management

b) Large number of customers
c) Fear of technology and unwillingness to change the status quo
d) Overtime and other incentives which will be introduced by the management

33. Radical change of business processes is also known as

a) Business Process Reengineering
b) Continuous improvement
c) Systematic redesign
d) Automation of business processes

34. Dyson’s dual cyclone vacuum, introduction of low-cost airlines such EasyJet, Toyota’s just in
time production are examples of which type of innovation by Smith (2015)
a) Process innovation, service innovation and product innovation
b) Service innovation, product innovation and process innovation
c) Product innovation, service innovation, process innovation
d) None of the above

35. What is the term for forcing people to accept change?

a) Conditioning
b) Conversion
c) Coercion
d) Converting
 Problem Statement - Case Study
Product Delivery Time
JOMVO Delight sells customised drinks and snacks to their customers across Lancashire,
North West Region. The delivery time at their Preston location has been averaging 38
minutes on Friday and Saturday nights (which is the high-volume periods). As a Result, 30% of
their products are delivered late (past 30 Mins). Delivery products in less that 30 mins is
crucial to increase revenue and customer satisfaction.

Questions:
1. What is the problem
2. Where is the problem?
3. Why is important?
4. Identify the magnitude of the problem
 Problem Statement - Case Study

International Transaction Failure

In the first quarter of 2021, Future-Tale Bank processed 108,000 international transactions.
Of those transactions 15,000 were cancelled and reverted resulting in a 13.8% return rate.
The rate of the return is above the accepted 7% rate and cost the company an additional
$520,000 for the first quarter. Over the course of the year, the current process could result in
additional cost of over $2.1 million. This will affect the overall financial position of the
company and loss of customers.
Questions:
1. What is the problem?
2. Where is the problem?
3. Why is it important?
4. Identify the magnitude of the problem