MID-TERM EXAMINATION

Program Name MBAWE Academic Year/ Term 2023-2024/II

Course Code PGWCOQ204 Course Name Operations Management
Total Marks 20 Time 1 hour

Instructions:
Open Book Yes Open Laptop Ye Calculato Ye
s r s

Other Information:

A. Attempt all questions.

Q1. Wild West, Inc. is a regional telephone company that inherited nearly 100,000 [Marks:
employees and 50,000 retirees from AT&T. Wild West has a new mission to diversify.
2.5+2.5= 5]
It calls for a 10-year effort to enter the financial services, real estate, cable TV, home
shop- ping, entertainment, and cellular communication ser vices markets and to
compete with other telephone companies. Wild West plans to provide cellular and
fiber-optic communications services in markets with established competitors, such as
the United Kingdom, and in markets with essentially no competition. such as Russia
and former Eastern Bloc countries.

a. What types of strategic plans must Wild West make? Is the "do-nothing" option
viable? If Wild West's mission appears too broad, which businesses would you
trim first?
Ans:
b. What are the possible core competencies of Wild West? What weaknesses should
it avoid or mitigate?
Ans:

Q2. Pan American Refineries, headquartered in Houston, must decide among three sites [Marks:
for the construction of a new oil processing centre. The firm has selected the six
2+2+1=5]
factors listed below as a basis for evaluation and has assigned rating weights from 1
to 5 on each factor:

Factor Factor Name Rating Weight

1 Proximity to port facilities 5
2 Power-source availability and cost 3
3 Workforce attitude and cost 4
4 Distance from Houston 2

1
 5 Community desirability 2
6 Equipment suppliers in area 3

Mr. Kartik Chakraborty, the CEO, has rated each location for each factor on a 1- to
100-point basis.

Factor Location A Location B Location C

1 100 80 80
2 80 70 100
3 30 60 70
4 10 80 60
5 90 60 80
6 50 60 90

a. Which site will be recommended based on total weighted scores?

Ans:

b. If location B’s score for Proximity to port facilities was reset to 90, how would the
result change?
Ans:

c. What score would location B need on Proximity to port facilities to change its
ranking?
Ans:

Q3. A manufacturer of certain household goods caters primarily to the south Indian [Marks 5]
market. At present, the manufacturer has located six stock points in the major south
Indian cities of Hyderabad, Mysore, Chennai, Kochi, Pune, and Vizag to cater to the
demand. There are four warehouses from which the components are distributed. To
save on the cost of operations, the warehouses are typically located away from these
cities in different locations. The unit cost of transporting the items from each of these
warehouses to the cities (Rs/tonne), the capacity of the warehouses, and the demand
at the city stock points per unit time (in tonnes) are all summarized in the Figure.
Identify the least cost schedule for deciding which warehouse will send the items to
the cities. Suppose the company has decided to shut down its Kochi operations and to
serve the requirements of Kochi from Mysore. Will the decision change? What will
the cost impact of this decision be?
Ans:

2
Q4. Shipments (in tons) of welded tube by an aluminium producer are shown below: [Marks:
1+2+2=5]

Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ton 2 3 6 10 8 7 12 14 14 18 19
s

a) Plot the data on graph and comment on the relationship.

Ans:

b) Using 3-year moving average forecast shipments for year 4 to year 12.
Ans:
c) Using a weight of 3 for the most recent data, 2 for the next, and 1 for the
oldest, forecast shipments for year 4 to 12.
Ans:

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