Read Chapter 9 and answer the questions below.
1. What is the current state of manufacturing in the United States?
2. What have U.S manufacturers done to achieve increased output?
3. What is production management?
4. What is operations management?
5. What kind of firms operations managers?
6. What is process manufacturing, and how does it differ from assembly processes?
7. What is flexible manufacturing?
8. What is lean manufacturing?
9. What is mass customization?
10. How do robotics help make manufactures more competitive?
11. What is 3D printing and what is it used for?
12. What facility location and how does differ from facility layout?
13. How do managers evaluate different sites?
14. What relationship do materials requirement planning (MRP) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) have with the production process?
15. What is Six Sigma quality, SAC and SPC?
16. What quality standards do firms use in the United States?
17. Worder are being replaced by AI. On the one hand, this lets companies compete with lower-cost labor from other countries. On the other hand, AI does eliminate many jobs. Are you concerned that AI may increase unemployment or underemployment in the United States and around the world? Why or why not?
18. One way to create new jobs in the United States is to increase innovation among new graduates from engineering and the sciences. How can the United States motivate more students to major in those areas?