Internet Exercises

Chapter 1- Introduction to Operations and Supply Chain Management

  1. Look for articles related to operations management at Fortune, Business Week, or CNN. How do they relate to the topics discussed in this chapter?
  2. Investigate the role of government in improving industrial competitiveness. Start with the U.S. Council on Competitiveness. Find a similar site for at least one other country and compare their priorities and initiatives. Find an interesting web site related to the operations function in a firm with which you are familiar. Write a summary of what you find.
  3. Three professional societies related to operations management are the Production and Operations Management Society ( the American Production and Inventory Control Society ( and the American Society for Quality ( Explore each site. What types of topics are discussed? What resources did you find useful?
  4. Choose three trade agreements from the following list: ANZERTA, APEC, ASEAN, ATPA, CACM, CEFTA, EU, FTAA, MERCOSUR, NAFTA, TAFTA, SADC, and SAPTA.Search for information on the web (use the acronym) that describes the treaties, tells how long they have been in effect, and if they've been renegotiated recently.
  5. The World Bank ranks countries in terms of globalization. Go to the research section of the World Bank and choose four countries to compare.
  6. The World Trade Organization has its advocates and is adversaries. Find out more about the organization by visiting its website at What kinds of activities does the organization support? What rules and regulations does it enforce? Who are its member states and how is membership achieved?
  7. Cultural differences can make it difficult to do business in other countries. World Business Culture provides a guide to business culture for the executive world traveler. Go to the website and choose a country to explore. Share your discoveries with your professor and classmates in a one to two page write-up.
  8. Much of the negotiation in trade agreements centers on ethical/legal issues such as intellectual property protection, bribery and payouts, and copyright and patent infringement. Transparency International publishes a bribery index by country. Report on which countries and industries are susceptible to bribery.
  9. Ethics is easier when there are laws to fall back on. Read about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), then search the web for FCPA cases and their results.
  10. Examine this year's Global500 by industry. Which industries are the most competitive? Which industries are the least competitive? Are some industries dominated by certain countries? Which industries are the most profitable?
  11. Access the Global Competitiveness Report and read about the countries that top the list. In what areas does each country excel?
  12. Visit the web site of three companies with which you are familiar. What does the mission or vision statement tell you about each organization? Is the mission or vision reflected in the way the web page is presented?
  13. Visit the web sites of two companies in the same industry. Examine their most recent annual reports. Can you identify how each company has chosen to compete? Use quotes from the reports to describe each company's overall strategy and their specific goals for the year. Does their overall strategy match their specific goals?
  14. Companies that compete on quality would certainly be interested in determining customer satisfaction. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) sponsors an annual survey to assess customer satisfaction. Link to this year's customer satisfaction index and evaluate industry "scores." Any surprises? Put the raw data into a bar chart showing progress (or change) over the years by industry. Also, summarize how the data is collected and which companies are chosen to participate.
  15. Find out more about Policy Deployment (also known as hoshin planning) by exploring TQE's hoshin planning site. Be sure to access the software demo. Print out the sample hoshin forms and create a hoshin example of your own using TQE's format.
  16. Read about the Balanced Scorecard at the website of its creators. How does the scorecard compare to hoshin planning?