APICS Updated CSCP Exam Questions and Answers by ned

Single sourcing a high-profit product increases overall supply chain risk due to several reasons:

Supplier Dependency: Relying on a single supplier for a critical product creates a high dependency, making the supply chain vulnerable to disruptions if that supplier faces issues (e.g., natural disasters, financial instability).

Lack of Alternatives: Without alternative sources, any disruption can lead to significant delays, shortages, and potential loss of revenue.

Negotiation Leverage: Single sourcing can reduce the buyer's negotiation leverage, potentially leading to higher costs or unfavorable terms.

Outsourcing unsuitable products, identifying multiple sources for risk-prone products, and internally manufacturing IP-sensitive products are strategies to mitigate risk, not increase it.

References

Chopra, Sunil, and Peter Meindl. "Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation." Pearson.

Harland, Christine, Richard Brenchley, and Helen Walker. "Risk in Supply Networks." Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management.

ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that helps organizations minimize their environmental impact and comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements. It provides a framework for developing an effective environmental management system (EMS) and ensures continuous improvement in environmental performance. While GRI, ISO 26000, and the United Nations Global Compact provide guidance on broader sustainability and social responsibility, ISO 14000 is specifically designed for managing environmental compliance and regulatory requirements.

Value stream mapping provides the most benefit when identifying nonvalue-added activities because:

Waste Identification: Value stream mapping visually represents all steps in a process, making it easier to identify and eliminate steps that do not add value to the customer.

Process Improvement: By highlighting nonvalue-added activities, organizations can focus their improvement efforts on streamlining processes, reducing waste, and enhancing efficiency.

Holistic View: This tool offers a comprehensive view of the entire process, helping to pinpoint bottlenecks, redundancies, and inefficiencies that might not be obvious in isolated parts of the process.

Strategic Planning: Identifying nonvalue-added activities helps in strategic planning for continuous improvement initiatives and kaizen events, ensuring that resources are directed towards the most impactful areas.

Analyzing customer requirements (Option A) and planning kaizen events (Option C) are important but are part of broader continuous improvement activities. Implementing an information technology strategy (Option D) is not directly related to the primary benefit of value stream mapping.

References

"Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda" by Mike Rother and John Shook.

"Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation" by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling.

The cash-to-cash cycle time is calculated as the sum of days' sales outstanding (DSO), days' inventory outstanding (DIO), and minus days' payables outstanding (DPO). Given:

Cash-to-cash cycle time = 60 days

DSO = 35 days

DPO = 25 days

First, determine the DIO: ????????????=60+25−35=50 daysDIO=60+25−35=50 days

If inventory is reduced by 20%, the new DIO is: ????????????????????????=50×(1−0.20)=40 daysDIOnew​=50×(1−0.20)=40 days

Now, calculate the new cash-to-cash cycle time: New cash-to-cash cycle time=????????????+????????????????????????−????????????New cash-to-cash cycle time=DSO+DIOnew​−DPO New cash-to-cash cycle time=35+40−25=50 daysNew cash-to-cash cycle time=35+40−25=50 days

Therefore, the new cash-to-cash cycle time will be approximately 50 days. References:

Coyle, J. J., Langley, C. J., Novack, R. A., & Gibson, B. (2016). Supply Chain Management: A Logistics Perspective. Cengage Learning.

Jacobs, F. R., & Chase, R. B. (2020). Operations and Supply Chain Management. McGraw-Hill Education.