Business Management

Module 2 Study Guide

Chapter 3

1. Define benchmarking.

The process of identifying, understanding, and adapting outstanding practices from within the same organization or from other businesses to help improve performance

2. What is business process reengineering (BPR)?

A procedure that involves the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic organizational improvements in such critical measures of performance as cost, quality, service, and speed

3. Explain the concept of continuous improvement.

A principle of TQM that assumes there will always be room for improvement, no matter how well the organization is doing

4. Explain the concept of a cycle time.

(a) For a line process, the actual time between completions of successive units on a production line (b) The total elapsed time needed to complete a business process

Also called throughput time

5. What is the development process?

A process that seeks to improve the performance of primary and support processes

6. Define efficiency.

A measure of process performance; the ratio of actual outputs to standard outputs

Usually expressed in percentage terms

7. What is mapping?

The process of developing graphic representations of the organizational relationships and/ or activities that make up a business process

8. Explain multifactor productivity.

A productivity score that measures output levels relative to more than one input

9. What is a primary process?

A process that addresses the main value-added activities of an organization

10. Define process.

A set of logically related tasks or activities performed to achieve a defined business outcome

11. What is a process map?

A detailed map that identifies the specific activities that make up the informational, physical, and/ or monetary flow of a process

12. What is a relationship map?

A high-level map that shows the major organizational entities involved in a business...