Questionnaires and

Surveys: a smart way to

sharpen your supply chain
 Content list

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 4

Mind Map ........................................................................................................................ 5

1. Get in context ............................................................................................................ 6

The importance of assessment ................................................................................... 6

2. Let’s read ................................................................................................................... 8

How Organizations Assess Supply Chain Risk ........................................................... 8

3. Let’s talk..................................................................................................................... 9
What to assess when assessing your supply chain? ................................................ 10
What are the desired Outcomes after assessing your supply chain? ........................ 11

4. Let’s listen ............................................................................................................... 11

Supply Chain Management ....................................................................................... 11

5. Let’s write ................................................................................................................ 14

What is a Survey? ..................................................................................................... 14
How to do a survey? ................................................................................................. 14
Common types of questions in a Survey ................................................................... 17

References ................................................................................................................... 27
 Introduction

Assessment or evaluation is an integral part of every process we start. It helps us to

determine if the goals or objectives of the given process are being met or not.
Assessment affects decisions about the sub-processes that should continue or those
which need some intervention or change. Thus, evaluation helps us to answer some
hard questions: “Are we doing ok?” “Are we meeting our objectives?” “Is there any way
to improve?”.

Today’s reality with businesses is not any different. Every business, and therefore, their
supply chains need to be evaluated as it will allow them to see what they should
continue doing and also what they need to stop doing in order to have a healthy
growth.

Through this learning material we’ll examine some of the aspects within the supply
chain that are subject to be assessed, as well as we will get familiar with the different
kind of questions we can create in order to make future decisions based on the current
performance of any supply chain.

4
 Mind Map

The following mind map will show you what the distribution of topics for this material is:

5
 1. Get in context

The importance of assessment

Hi, dear student. Welcome back!

Being a Physical Distribution Student from The SENA training program has enabled
you to understand relatively easy the way businesses work. You have also had the
opportunity to see how some companies failed, so you probably have a critical view to
analyze the way different businesses operate. But, have you ever wondered how you
can evaluate your own business before it is too late?

Sometimes, it is very difficult to see your own mistakes. That is why, it is necessary to
be evaluating or assessing your company processes on a regular basis. Most
companies rely on these regular assessments to avoid coming to failure.

So, let’s learn one of the strategies to assess our performance.

Fuente: SENA

Esteban Hi, Cami. How are you?

Camila Hey Esteban! I’m great. What about you?
Esteban Good as well. How’s your internship going?
Camila I’ve been learning a lot. Every day, I find a new challenge… hehe...
What about you?
Esteban Likewise! Today I got a big one!
Camila Wow! What is it?

6
Esteban Hmmm… I have been checking our numbers and it seems that we
are not having very good sales in a specific retailer store. Last year,
around the same time of the year, our profits in that specific store
were very different from the ones I can see today. They were higher!
Camila Can you think of any reason why this is happening?
Esteban Well, there are many things. But it is very difficult to know exactly
why things aren’t going so well this year.
Camila It doesn’t have to be THAT difficult. Why don’t you assess some
links of your supply chain associated to that retail store?
Esteban How could I evaluate my supply chain?
Camila There are many ways, but the easiest one is questionnaires or
surveys.
Esteban Surveys?
Camila Yeah, you know those questions to evaluate something specific. You
could ask different people about the factors that they like or don’t like
about your product.
Esteban That sounds like a good idea.
Camila Of course! And that will help you to identify the problem and also to
formulate a possible solution. You never know what you can find.
The problem might be with the transportation or the marketing
strategy… or who knows, even customer service.
Esteban You’re absolutely right! I need to study how to do a survey
Camila ;)
Esteban Hey, thanks! You’re my life-saver!
Camila You know It’s my pleasure! Good luck with that! ;)

Fuente: SENA

7
 2. Let’s read

How Organizations Assess Supply Chain Risk

Natural disasters and political confusion have made supply chain management
professionals think differently about risks to supply chain stability and resiliency. In
2013, one company understood the importance of surveys and conducted a survey of
supply chain and finance professionals to learn how they view and address three specific
risks to supply chains:

 Natural disasters (such as tsunamis and earthquakes).

 Extreme weather events.
 Political disorder in important world regions.

The survey collected responses from 196 organizations that represented more than 22
different industries. Eighty-three percent (83 %) of respondents had experienced at
least one unexpected supply chain disruption in the last 24 months. Of that group, 78
percent (78 %) experienced a disruption significant enough to have required the
attention or intervention of the top executives at their organizations.

To determine how organizations are addressing supply chain risk, this company asked
these industries how often they conduct assessments of their supply chains’ resiliency
and exposure to potential disruption risk. Following, the results:

Fuente: Guest Contributor (2014)

In another survey question, the respondents indicated the types of assessments they
use to evaluate potential supply chain risk. As the figure below shows, the largest group
of organizations (48 %) uses informal risk assessments such as site inspections and
conversations with suppliers’ managers. The second largest group (40 %) believes on
the judgment of procurement and operating professionals to determine potential risks.

8
 Fuente: Guest Contributor (2014)

These are just some few of the aspects this survey took into account. Over all, this
company stressed the importance of identifying all potential risks and assessing the
impact of these risks on business continuity. This involves not only a close examination
of the organization’s weak points, but also sources of potential disruption for multiple
suppliers. It also emphasized that assessing these aspects could be done by means of
easy strategies such as surveys since they can be a relatively cheap and quick way of
obtaining information and can provide answers to questions such as what? Where?
When? How? (Guest Contributor, 2014)

3. Let’s talk

Before doing any survey or questionnaire, you must

be familiar with the topic and the vocabulary you are
going to be using. The language you use must be
clear so there is no space for misunderstanding for
your respondents.

Fuente: SENA

9
What to assess when assessing your supply chain?

By assessing your internal processes, you can understand your supply chain strengths
and weaknesses compared to the stated best practices. Thus, improvement
opportunities are identified and prioritized based on the potential impact and level of
effort required to close the gap.

In general terms, you could summarize the supply chain assessment as follows:

Fuente: Supply Chain Acuity (2013)

A normal supply chain assessment includes:

 Conducting a series of interviews with participants from many departments and level
of responsibility.

 Making site visits.

 Collecting relevant data and performance metrics and analyze.

 Identify best practices and perform gap analysis.

 Make recommendations to solve key challenges and prioritize improvements.

 Roadmap to achieve results.

A full assessment includes 12 supply chain functions:

1. Customer experience.

2. Supply Chain Strategy and Network Design.

3. Demand Management.

4. Supply Management.

10
 5. Inventory Management.

6. Warehouse Management.

7. Transportation Management.

8. International Trade (if applicable).

9. Customer Service.

10. Organization and People Development.

11. Information Technology.

12. Performance Measurement. (Supply Chain Acuity, 2013)

What are the desired Outcomes after assessing your supply chain?

 “Clear understanding of supply chain strengths and weaknesses.

 Identified gaps for supply chain improvement.

 Qualitative and quantitative supply chain improvement opportunities.

 Independent, 3rd party perspective.

 Prioritized plan to achieve results” (Supply Chain Acuity, 2013).

4. Let’s listen

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is essential to understand how to

evaluate your supply chain. Let’s check what the supply
management is about:

Fuente: SENA

11
 When we think of supply chain management (SCM), we usually
think of logistics, but supply chain management is about more
than just shipping goods from point A to point B.

We'll look at the basic steps in the supply chain beginning with
suppliers who sell materials or parts to the manufacturers that
assemble products. The products then go to distributors who
transport them to retailers where they are then sold to consumers
or end-users.

Fuente: SENA

Select the best option for each case:

Definition Concept Example

A ______ _______ is the
entire network of businesses a) Community The ______ ______for
involved in providing goods or manager gasoline begins with
services to a customer this b) Sales extracting oil from the
includes all the processes community ground and ends with the
related to the creation c) Supply Chain gas sold at the pump.
storage and movement of a d) Supply step
product.
_________ is the process of
Our ________ Department
managing the flow and a) Logistics
has a sophisticated system
storage of materials, goods b) Manufacturing
for tracking materials
information and capital. Good c) Warehousing
through the supply chain.
planning and communication d) Supplying
is essential to good logistics.
We offer customers different
a) Manufacturing
________ is the movement of _________ options with
b) Selling
goods and cargo either by different delivery speeds
c) Buying
land air or sea. and costs.
d) Shipping
A ________ is a business
that provides goods or
services to other businesses a) Retailer Gorman Motors is looking
in a supply chain. A b) Supplier for a new _________ for the
manufacturer usually relies c) Distributor electrical components of its
on several or even hundreds d) Consumer trucks
of different ________.

_________ are the physical a) Taxes The high cost of ________

12
 items that a supplier provides b) Materials has slowed down the
to other businesses these c) Cargo construction sector in the
_______ could be raw d) Invoices last few years.
resources such as oil or
manufactured parts such as
computer chips.
A ___________ uses
machines tools and labor to
a) Manufacturer Boeing is one of the largest
transform materials into
b) Distributor ________ of airplanes in the
goods. The goods might be
c) Retail store world.
for use by consumers or as
d) Warehouse
parts of a more complex
product.
The Canadian Paper
a) Manufacturer
A _________ buys products Company found a European
b) Distributor
from manufacturers and then _______ for their specialty
c) Retailer
resells them to retailers. products.
d) Warehouse
a) Warehouse
Traditional _______ are
A _________ is a business b) Distributor
complaining about online
that sells products directly to c) Manufacturer
______ stealing their
customers or end-users. d) Retailer
customers.

In economics the _________

a) Market After the economic crisis
is the one who uses a good
b) Consumer _________ show their lack
or service that has been
c) Customs broker of confidence by saving
produced consumers are the
d) Distributor rather than spending.
final link in the supply chain.

Let’s get some more practice. Complete the following sentences. The first letter is given
for each gap:

1) We offer free S____________ on orders to customers in North America.

2) Samsung is very successful because they understand C___________ preferences.

3) General Electric is one of the largest M_____________ companies in the world.

4) Walmart is so successful that smaller R______________ find it hard to compete.

5) Large shipping companies such as TNT and FedEx provide a complete

L_________ solution.

Note: Please, go to the multimedia version of this material to find the answers for the
previous activity.

13
 5. Let’s write

What is a Survey?

Surveys are a method of collecting information from individuals. Surveys have a variety
of purposes, and can be conducted in many ways. Surveys may be conducted to
collect information through a printed questionnaire, over the telephone, by mail, in
person, or on the web.

This information is collected through use of standard procedures so that every

participant is asked the same questions in the same way. It involves asking people for
information in some structured format. Depending on what is being analyzed, the
respondents may be representing themselves, their employer, or some organization to
which they belong.

How to do a survey?

Follow these simple steps to conduct a successful survey which will help you to get
useful information.

1. Identify the type of information that you want to collect. This will help you to design
your questions.

2. Identify the types of questions you will use according to your interests. Remember
that the type of questions you ask will affect the analysis you do.

3. When writing your questions, have in mind the following tips:

 Use simple, direct language. Avoid using confusing words or words with double
meaning. They might confuse your respondents and the information you will get,
won’t reflect reality.

 Be specific. Some concepts may mean different things to different people. Try to
be as specific as possible when you ask questions.

 Break Down Big Ideas into Multiple Questions: Another way to deal with broad
concepts that mean different things to different people is by breaking them down
into multiple, more tangible questions.

For example, “Customer satisfaction” is a common topic that businesses want to

explore, and it's a big question packed with smaller ideas. Instead of asking
“How Satisfied Are You with This Product?”, you could instead ask people to
give their opinion on three separate statements (asking them to weigh in on a
scale of “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”).

14
  Ask One Thing per Question. Each of your survey questions should ask one
thing, and one thing only. It seems simple enough, but many survey writers fall
into the “double-barreled” question trap. For example, “Do you eat fruits &
veggies on a daily basis?” can actually be a hard question to answer. What if
somebody eats just fruits or just veggies?

4. Before implementing your survey, test it. Make sure all your questions are clear and
there are not any mistakes (spelling, punctuation, etc.).

5. Make sure your survey is not very long. Nobody wants to spend hours answering a
questionnaire.

Let’s check how to do the questions:

In English, the word order of a sentence usually follows this pattern:

Subject Verb Object

He eats apples.

They drink coffee.

Fuente: SENA

However, word order changes for the both types of question we have in English: Yes/No
questions (Closed questions) and WH-Questions (Open questions).

Note that in the question the subject follows the verb but in the response the verb
follows the subject. Here are examples with closed questions. Pay attention to the word
order.

Yes / No question Response

Verb Subject Subject Verb

Is John here? Yes, he is here

Are they Costa Rican? Yes, they are Costa Rican.

Fuente: SENA

Here are examples with open questions.

15
 Wh – question Response

Wh-word Verb Subject Subject Verb

Where are Tom and Susan? Tom and Susan are there.

When was the party? The party was yesterday.

Fuente: SENA

In the following examples, the questions are formed with AUXILIARY VERBS. Note that
in the question the subject is placed between the verbs. In the response, both verbs
follow the subject.

Yes / No question Response

Aux. Subject Main Subject Aux. Main
verb verb verb verb
Has the rain stopped? Yes, the rain has stopped.
Have they eaten? Yes, they have eaten.
Should they go? Yes, they should go.
Can he stay? Yes, he can stay.

Fuente: SENA

Questions formed with the auxiliary verb DO are different. The auxiliary verb is absent in
the response. Here are examples with closed questions.

Yes / No question Response

aux. Main Main

Subject Subject
verb verb verb

Do they eat meat? Yes, they eat meat.

Does the bank open at 9:00? Yes, the bank opens at 9:00.

Fuente: SENA

16
Here are examples with open questions.

Wh – question Response

Aux. Main main

Wh-word Subject subject
verb verb verb

Where does Mario work? He works at home.

When did Helena leave? She left yesterday.

Fuente: SENA

*Remember: the verb DO is essential for asking questions with all verbs except the verb BE and
modal verbs.

Common types of questions in a Survey

A. YES / NO Questions or Closed questions:

This is the simplest type of questions. It is useful to establish simple percentages.

Yes / No questions are also called closed questions because there are only two
possible responses: Yes or No. No explanations needed.

When forming a Yes / No question, it must include one of these verbs: BE, DO,
HAVE, or a modal verb. It is impossible to ask a Yes / No question without one of
these verbs.

Correct Incorrect
Are elections next year? Elections next year?

Does he want to stay? He want to stay?

Have the boys eaten? The boys eaten?

Can the dog swim? The dog swim?

Fuente: SENA
Use the verb BE to ask Yes / No questions about the identity or description of a
person, place, or thing. Pay attention to the tense of the verb BE to identify the
moment in time you are asking about:

17
 Tense of the Verb BE (This
tense has to be the same in
Question Possible responses
the question and the
answer)

Am I your friend? Yes.

Yes, you are.

Yes, you are my friend.

Is this a good No.

restaurant?
No, it is not.
Verb BE in simple present. It
refers to a present situation No, it is not a good
restaurant.

Are these islands Yes.

Greek?
Yes, they are.

Yes, these islands are

Greek.

Was his idea No.

interesting?
No, it wasn’t.

Verb BE in simple past. It No, his idea was not

refers to a past and interesting.

Were they happy? completed situation Yes.

Yes, they were.

Yes, they were happy.

Fuente: SENA

* Note that the response can be short (Yes. / No.), or long: Yes or No followed by the subject
and verb.

Use the verb BE with a preposition to ask Yes / No questions about a present or
past location.

18
 Question Response

Am I at the correct location? No.

No, you aren’t.

Are the keys under the books? No.

No, they are not.

Was his house on an island? Yes.

Yes, it was.

Were the demonstrations in the center of town? No.

No, they weren’t.

Fuente: SENA

Use the verb BE to ask a Yes / No question about a current activity or situation. This
requires the present progressive: BE + (verb+ing).

Question Response

Yes.
Am I going with you and Tom?
Yes, you are.

No.
Is she working today?
No, she isn’t.

Yes.
Are we shipping the cargo tomorrow?
Yes, we are.

Fuente: SENA

Use the verb BE to ask a Yes / No question about a past activity or situation. This
requires the past progressive: WAS / WERE + (verb+ing).

19
 Question Response

Was it raining? Yes.

Yes, it was.
Were they manufacturing those parts? No.
No, they weren’t.

Fuente: SENA

Use the verb HAVE to ask if somebody has done something or if some action has
taken place. Note that these Yes / No questions use the present perfect (HAVE +
past participle).

Question Response
Has your brother left? No.
No, he hasn’t.

Have you driven before? Yes.

Yes, I have.

Has the shipping started? Yes.

Yes, it has.

Fuente: SENA

Use the verb DO to ask Yes / No questions in order to obtain facts about people,
places, or things. You should also pay attention to the tense. Do refers to present
situations or facts; DID refers to past situation or facts.

Question Response
Do they smoke? No.
No, they don’t.
Does it rain here? Yes.
Yes, it does.
Did the key work? No.
No, it didn’t.

Fuente: SENA

Use modal verbs to ask Yes / No questions about possibilities or uncertainties.

20
 Question Response
Can we stay? Yes.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can stay.
Could this be true? Yes.
Yes, it could (be true).

Should they stop? No.

No, they shouldn’t
(stop).
May I help you? Yes.
Yes you may (help
me).

Fuente: SENA

Remember: When asking Yes / No questions with DO or a modal verb, the main verb
remains in the base form (without to).

Correct
Do you drink coffee?
Does she work here?
Can I go with you?
Should we email her?
Incorrect
Do you to drink coffee?
Does she to work here?
Can I to go with you?
Should we to email her?

Fuente: SENA

However, if there are two verbs that follow DO, the second verb remains in
the infinitive (with to).

Correct Incorrect
Do you want to drink coffee? Do you want drink coffee?
Does she like to work here? Does she like work here?
Did you need to go home? Did you need go home?

Fuente: SENA

Note that there are several ways to answer Yes / No questions, especially when
using contractions.

Question Response
No.
Is he the customer?
No, he isn’t.

21
 No, he’s not.
No, he is not.
No, he isn’t the customer.
No, he’s not the customer.
No, he is not the customer.

Fuente: SENA

B. Multiple choice:

These type of questions you should use open questions or WH-questions to which
you can add as many answers as you want, and your respondents can pick only one
answer to the question.

Let’s check how to do open or wh-questions:

Wh - questions are so called because with the exception of the question word how,
all the question words begin with the letters Wh. They are also called open
questions because the number of possible responses is limitless. This means they
must be answered with more information than just a simple “yes” or “no”.

Here are the Wh - English question words.

 Who, whom.

 What.

 When.

 Where.

 Why.

 How.

 Which.

 Whose.

Please note that every wh word is always followed by one of the Auxiliar verbs: BE,
DO, DOES, DID, HAVE, HAS or a MODAL VERB.

These auxiliary verbs, just like they did with the YES / NO questions, will provide
information about the specific time they are asking for.

22
Who and whom are used to obtain information about a person or people.

Question Response
Who is at the door? Tom is at the door.
Whom is he calling? He is calling Customer Service.
(Who is he calling?)

Fuente: SENA

What is used to request information about somebody or something.

Question Response
What is this? This is a bird.
What did she say? She said to be quiet.
What have they done? They’ve paid the taxes.

Fuente: SENA

When is used to obtain information about the time period in which an action occurs.

Question Response
When does Anna arrive? She arrives at 10:30.
When can I see you again? I don’t know.
When was the race? The race was yesterday.

Fuente: SENA

Where is used to obtain information about the location of a person or thing.

Question Response
Where does Natasha live? She lives in Miami.
Where were the keys? The keys were in the car.
Where have you been? We have been at the bank.

Fuente: SENA

Why is used to obtain information about the reason something happens, or the
reason somebody does something.

Question Response
Why is the street closed? Because they are repairing it.
Why did Alex leave? He left because he had a meeting.

23
 Why haven’t you called? I haven’t called because I lost my cell
phone.

Fuente: SENA

*Note that Why is the interrogative form to ask for a reason and because is the introductory
word to explain a reason.

How is used to obtain information about the way something happens, or the manner
or way somebody behaves or does something.

Question Response
How does this work? Push the red button.
How was your mother? She was much better.
How has the weather been? It’s been very rainy.
How will he win the race? By training every day.

Fuente: SENA

Which is used to obtain information in order to make a comparison between two or

more similar things or people.

Question Response
Which of these pens is the best? The black one.
Which author do you enjoy? I enjoy reading Borges.
Which river is longer, the Nile or the The Nile.
Amazon?

Fuente: SENA

Whose is used to obtain information about who something belongs to.

Question Response
Whose book is on the table? That’s Tom’s book.
Whose idea was that? It was her idea.
Whose child is this that has a cough? He is my child.

Fuente: SENA
* Warning! Do not confuse whose with the contraction who’s (who is). In
spoken English, these words sound exactly the same, but in writing they
are very different.

C. Checkbox

24
If you have a multiple choice-type question where you think some people will want to
choose more than one option, checkbox questions provide that flexibility. Add as
many answers as you want, and respondents can pick as many answers to the
question as you want.

This type of questions also require open or wh-questions as they provide more than
two options to answer.

Example:

Which types of meat do you like?

 Beef
 Pork
 Chicken
 Fish
 Duck
 Other Fuente: SENA

1. When writing your questions, have in mind the following tips:

 Use simple, direct language. Avoid using confusing words or words with
double meaning. They might confuse your respondents and the information
you will get, won’t reflect reality.

 Be specific. Some concepts may mean different things to different people.

Try to be as specific as possible when you ask questions.

 Break Down Big Ideas into Multiple Questions. Another way to deal with
broad concepts that mean different things to different people is by breaking
them down into multiple, more tangible questions.

 For example, “Customer satisfaction” is a common topic that businesses

want to explore, and it's a big question packed with smaller ideas. Instead of
asking “How Satisfied Are You with This Product?”, you could instead ask
people to give their opinion on three separate statements (asking them to
weigh in on a scale of “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”).

 Ask One Thing per Question. Each of your survey questions should ask
one thing, and one thing only. It seems simple enough, but many survey
writers fall into the “double-barreled” question trap. For example, “Do you eat
fruits & veggies on a daily basis?” can actually be a hard question to answer.
What if somebody eats just fruits or just veggies?

25
2. Before implementing your survey, test it. Make sure all your questions are clear
and there are not any mistakes (spelling, punctuation, etc.).

3. Make sure your survey is not very long. Nobody wants to spend hours answering
a questionnaire.

Let's check a survey example:

Fuente: SENA

Note: The complete survey sample is available in the additional material

called “Supply Chain Self-Assessment sample”.

26
 References

Guest Contributor. (2014). How Organizations Assess Supply Chain Risk. Recuperado
de http://spendmatters.com/

Supply Chain Acuity. (2013). Supply Chain Opportunity Assessment. Recuperado de

http://supplychainacuity.com/

Document control

Nombre Cargo Dependencia Fecha

Centro de Gestión de
Autor Mercados, Logística y
Karen Yolima Experta Agosto de
Tecnologías de la
Torres Tafur técnica 2017
Información. Regional
Distrito Capital
Andrés Felipe Guionista -
Centro Agroindustrial. Octubre de
Adaptación Velandia Línea de
Regional Quindío 2017
Espitia Producción

27