Project management MCQs Test Bank

1. Which of the following statements regarding project management is false?

a. Project organization works well when the work contains simple, independent tasks.

b. Gantt charts give a timeline for each of a project's activities, but do not adequately show the interrelationships of activities.

c. Project organization is most suitable for projects that are temporary but critical to the organization.

d. All of the above are true.

e. None of the above are true.

2. Which of the following statements regarding Gantt charts is true?

a. Gantt charts are visual devices that show the duration of activities in a project.

b. Gantt charts give a timeline and precedence relationships for each activity of a project.

c. Gantt charts use the four standard spines of Methods, Materials, Manpower, and Machinery.

d. Gantt charts are expensive.

e. All of the above are true.

3. Which of the following statements regarding PERT times is true?

a. Optimistic time estimate is an estimate of the minimum time an activity will require.

b. Optimistic time estimate is an estimate of the maximum time an activity will require.

c. The probable time estimate is calculated as t = (a + 4m + b)/6.

d. Pessimistic time estimate is an estimate of the minimum time an activity will require.

e. Most likely time estimate is an estimate of the maximum time an activity will require.

4. Which of the following statements regarding critical paths is true?

a. The shortest of all paths through the network is the critical path.

b. Some activities on the critical path may have slack.

c. Every network has exactly one critical path.

d. On a specific project, there can be multiple critical paths, all with exactly the same duration.

e. The duration of the critical path is the average duration of all paths in the project network.

5. Which of the following statements regarding CPM is false?

a. The critical path is the shortest of all paths through the network.

b. The critical path is that set of activities that has positive slack.

c. Some networks have no critical path.

d. All activities on the critical path have their LS equal EF.

e. All of the above are false.

6. Which of the following statements concerning CPM activities is false?

a. The late finish of an activity is the earliest late start of all preceding activities.

b. The early finish of an activity is the early start of that activity plus its duration.

c. The late finish is the earliest of the late start times of all successor activities.

d. The late start of an activity is its late finish less its duration.

e. The early start of an activity is the latest early finish of all preceding activities.

7. Which of the following statements regarding CPM networks is true?

a. The early finish of an activity is the latest early start of all preceding activities.

b. The late finish of an activity is the earliest late start of all preceding activities.

c. On a specific project, there can be multiple critical paths, all of which will have exactly the same duration.

d. A project does not have to have a critical path.

e. All of the above are true.

8. Activities that are not on a PERT critical path but have little slack need to be monitored closely because

a. PERT treats all activities as equally important

b. near-critical paths could become critical paths with small delays in these activities

c. they are causing the entire project to be delayed

d. slack is undesirable and needs to be eliminated

e. they have a high risk of not being completed

9. Which of the following statements regarding project management is true?

a. Both PERT and CPM require that network tasks have unchanging durations.

b. Shortening the project by assigning more resources to one or more of the critical tasks is called "project crashing."

c. Crashing need not consider the impact of crashing an activity on other paths in the network.

d. Project crashing is an optimizing technique.

e. Crash cost depends upon the variance of the activity to be crashed.

10. Which of these statements regarding time-cost tradeoffs in CPM networks is true?

a. Crashing is not possible unless there are multiple critical paths.

b. Crashing a project often reduces the length of long-duration, but non-critical, activities.

c. Activities not on the critical path can never be on the critical path, even after crashing.

d. Crashing shortens the project duration by assigning more resources to one or more of the critical tasks.

e. None of the above.

11. Which of the following statements regarding time-cost tradeoffs in CPM networks is false?

a. Shortening the project duration by assigning more resources to one or more of the critical tasks is called "project crashing."

b. Crashing procedures must consider the impact of crashing an activity on all paths in the network.

c. Crashing sometimes has the reverse result of lengthening the project duration.

d. Activities not on the critical path can become critical after crashing takes place.

e. All of the above are true.

12. Which of the following statements regarding project management is false?

a. Project management differs from the management of more traditional activities due to the limited lifetime of projects.

b. Dummy activities are added to paths to make all paths of equal length, analogous to adding slack variables in linear programming.

c. A Gantt chart contains no precedence relationships, but may be useful for simple projects.

d. Dummy activities consume no time.

e. Slack is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the entire project, assuming its preceding activities are completed as early as possible.

13. Which of the following statements regarding time-cost tradeoffs in CPM networks is true?

a. Crashing shortens the critical path by assigning more resources to one or more non-critical tasks.

b. Crashing is not possible unless there are multiple critical paths.

c. Crashing a project reduces the length of critical activities only.

d. Project crashing is not effective when applied to tasks with zero slack.

e. All of the above are false.

22. The layout strategy that deals with low-volume, high-variety production is

a. fixed-position layout

b. retail/service layout

c. warehouse layout

d. all of the above

e. none of the above

23. A good layout requires determining

a. capacity and space requirements

b. material handling requirements

c. environment and aesthetics

d. flows of information

e. all of the above

24. For which of the following operations would a fixed-position layout be most appropriate?

a. assembly of an automobile

b. production of cameras and TV sets

c. construction of a ship

d. refining of crude oil

e. grocery store

25. The type of layout which features departments or other functional groupings in which similar activities are performed is

a. process

b. product

c. fixed-position

d. mass

e. unit

26. A process layout would be most appropriate in which of the following cases?

a. constructing a Boeing 777 aircraft

b. a gourmet restaurant

c. a fast-food restaurant

d. an automobile factory

e. a steel mill

27. The major problem addressed by the process-oriented layout strategy is

a. the movement of material to the limited storage areas around the site

b. minimizing difficulties caused by material flow varying with each product

c. requiring frequent contact close to one another

d. the provision of low-cost storage with low-cost material handling

e. balancing product flow from one work station to the next

28. Which of the following is true for process layouts, but false for product layouts?

a. low in-process inventories

b. low variety of products

c. high volume of output

d. often solved by assembly line balancing

e. flexibility in equipment and labor assignments

29. A process-oriented layout is best suited for

a. the assembly of products like automobiles and appliances

b. the mass production of uniform products

c. low-volume, high-variety production

d. high-volume, low-variety production

e. construction of a ship

30. According to Heizer and Render, an office layout

a. groups workers, their equipment, and spaces/offices to provide for movement of information

b. addresses the layout requirements of large, bulky projects such as ships and buildings

c. seeks the best personnel and machine utilization in repetitive or continuous production

d. allocates shelf space and responds to customer behavior

e. deals with low-volume, high-variety production

31. Which of the following is true of a focused factory?

a. They may be focused in ways other than by product or layout.

b. They may be focused only by processing requirements.

c. They are much like a product facility within an otherwise process facility.

d. All of the above are true.

e. None of the above are true.

32. Which of the following constitutes a major trend influencing office layouts?

a. downsizing

b. globalization

c. virtual companies

d. environmental issues

e. health issues

33. According to Heizer and Render, a retail/service layout

a. groups workers, their equipment, and spaces/offices to provide for movement of information

b. addresses the layout requirements of large, bulky projects such as ships and buildings

c. seeks the best personnel and machine utilization in repetitive or continuous production

d. allocates space and responds to customer behavior

e. deals with low-volume, high-variety production

34. Balancing low-cost storage with low-cost material handling is important in

a. a fixed-position layout

b. a process-oriented layout

c. an office layout

d. a product-oriented layout

e. a warehouse layout

35. Which of the following does notsupport the retail layout objective of maximizing customer exposure to products?

a. locate high-draw items around the periphery of the store

b. use prominent locations for high-impulse and high-margin items

c. maximize exposure to expensive items

d. distribute "power items" to both sides of the aisle

e. convey the store's mission with the careful positioning of the lead-off department

36. Which type of layout is used to achieve a smooth and rapid flow of large volumes of output?

a. process

b. batch

c. product

d. unit

e. fixed-position

37. Which of the following are strongly associated with "crossdocking"?

a. non-value-adding activities such as receiving and storing

b. multi-modal transportation facilities at seaports

c. processing items as soon as they are received into a distribution center

d. use of manual product identification systems

e. all of the above

38. A major assumption of stability of demand is important for justifying which of the following layout types?

a. product layout

b. process layout

c. fixed-position layout

d. all of the above

e. none of the above

39. The main advantage of a product-oriented layout is typically

a. low raw material cost

b. employability of highly skilled labor

c. low capital cost

d. low variable cost per unit

e. high flexibility

40. In a product layout the process of deciding how to assign tasks to work stations is referred to as

a. process balancing

b. task allocation

c. line balancing

d. work allocation

e. station balancing

41. In assembly line balancing, cycle time (the ratio of production time to demand), is

a. the maximum time that a product is available at each work station

b. the minimum time that a product is available at each work station

c. the optimum time that a product is available at each work station

d. the desired cycle time that a product is available at each work station

e. all of the above

42. In assembly line balancing, the minimum number of workstations is

a. the ratio of the sum of all task times to cycle time

b. the ratio of demand times sum of task times to production time per day

c. is always rounded upward to the next larger integer value

d. all of the above

e. none of the above

43. Cycle time is computed as

a. daily operating time divided by the desired output

b. desired output divided by the daily operating time

c. daily operating time divided by the product of desired output and the sum of job times

d. the product of desired output and the sum of job times divided by daily operating time

e. 1.00 minus station time

44. Daily capacity of a product layout is determined by

a. cycle time divided by operating time

b. operating time divided by cycle time

c. operating time divided by total task time

d. total task time divided by cycle time

e. cycle time divided by total task time

1. Which of the following is not needed in order to use the transportation model?

a. the source points and their capacity

b. the destination points and their demand

c. the cost of shipping one unit from each source to each destination

d. fixed costs of source points

e. all of the above are needed

2. The purpose of the transportation approach for locational analysis is to minimize

a. total costs

b. total shipping costs

c. total variable costs

d. total fixed costs

e. the number of shipments

3. A transportation problem consists of 8 points of origin and 6 destinations. The number of possible routes for this problem is

a. 2

b. 14

c. 48

d. 64

e. unknown

4. The transportation method is a special case of the family of problems known as

a. regression problems

b. linear programming problems

c. decision tree problems

d. simulation problems

e. statistical problems

5. The initial solution to a transportation problem can be generated in any manner, so long as

a. it minimizes cost

b. it ignores cost

c. all supply and demand are satisfied

d. degeneracy does not exist

e. all cells are filled

6. Which of the following statements about the northwest corner rule is false?

a. One must exhaust the supply for each row before moving down to the next row.

b. One must exhaust the demand requirements of each column before moving to the next column.

c. When moving to a new row or column, one must select the cell with the lowest cost.

d. One must check that all supply and demand constraints are met.

e. All of the above are false.

7. For the problem data set below, what is the northwest corner allocation to the cell Source 1-Destination 1?

Data
COSTS	Dest. 1	Dest. 2	Dest. 3	Supply
Source 1	2	1	3	30
Source 2	4	2	1	40
Source 3	3	8	6	20
Demand	15	50	25	90 \ 90

a. 0

b. 2

c. 15

d. 30

e. 90

8. In transportation model analysis the stepping-stone method is used to

a. obtain an initial optimum solution

b. obtain an initial feasible solution

c. evaluate empty cells for potential solution improvements

d. evaluate empty cells for possible degeneracy

e. balance supply and demand

9. For the problem data set below, what is the northwest corner allocation to the cell Source 1 -Destination 2?

Data
COSTS	Dest. 1	Dest. 2	Dest. 3	Supply
Source 1	2	1	3	30
Source 2	4	2	1	40
Origin 3	3	8	6	20
Demand	15	50	25	90 \ 90

a. 0

b. 15

c. 25

d. 35

e. 45

10. For the problem data set below, what is the northwest corner allocation to the cell Source 3-Destination 3?

Data
COSTS	Dest. 1	Dest. 2	Dest. 3	Supply
Source 1	2	1	3	30
Source 2	4	2	1	40
Source 3	3	8	6	20
Demand	15	50	25	90 \ 90

a. 0

b. 15

c. 20

d. 35

e. 45

11. A transportation problem has a feasible solution when

a. all of the improvement indexes are positive

b. the number of filled cells is one less than the number of rows plus the number of columns

c. all the squares are used

d. the solution yields the lowest possible cost

e. all demand and supply constraints are satisfied

12. When the number of shipments in a feasible solution is less than the number of rows plus the number of columns minus one

a. the solution is optimal

b. there is degeneracy, and an artificial allocation must be created

c. a dummy source must be created

d. a dummy destination must be created

e. the closed path has a triangular shape

13. The total cost of the optimal solution to a transportation problem

a. is calculated by multiplying the total supply (including any dummy values) by the average cost

of the cells

b. cannot be calculated from the information given

c. can be calculated from the original non-optimal cost, by adding the savings made at each improvement

d. is found by multiplying the amounts in each cell by the cost for that cell for each row and then subtract the products of the amounts in each cell times the cost of each cell for the columns

e. can be calculated based only on the entries in the filled cells of the solution

14. The stepping-stone method

a. is an alternative to using the northwest corner rule

b. often involves tracing closed paths with a triangular shape

c. is used to evaluate the cost effectiveness of shipping goods via transportation routes not currently in the solution

d. is used to identify the relevant costs in a transportation problem

e. helps determine whether a solution is feasible or not

15. In a minimization problem, a negative improvement index in a cell indicates that the

a. solution is optimal

b. total cost will increase if units are reallocated to that cell

c. total cost will decrease if units are reallocated to that cell

d. current iteration is worse than the previous one

e. problem has no feasible solution

16. In a minimization problem, a positive improvement index in a cell indicates that

a. the solution is optimal

b. the total cost will increase if units are reallocated to that cell

c. the total cost will decrease if units are reallocated to that cell

d. there is degeneracy

e. the problem has no feasible solution

17. An improvement index indicates

a. whether a method other than the stepping stone should be used

b. whether a method other that the northwest corner rule should be used

c. whether the transportation cost in the upper left-hand corner of a cell is optimal

d. how much total cost would increase or decrease if the largest possible quantity were reallocated to that cell

e. how much total cost would increase or decrease if a single unit was reallocated to that cell

Inv12

1. Which of the following is a reason for holding inventory?

a. to meet customer demand

b. to protect against shortages

c. to decouple production from distribution

d. to allow for smooth and flexible operations

e. all of the above are motives for holding inventory

2. Which of the following statements about ABC analysis is false?

a. ABC analysis is based on the presumption that controlling the few most important items produces the vast majority of inventory savings.

b. In ABC analysis, "A" Items are tightly controlled, have accurate records, and receive regular review by major decision makers.

c. ABC analysis is based on the presumption that all items must be tightly controlled to produce important cost savings.

d. In ABC analysis, "C" Items have minimal records, periodic review, and simple controls

e. None of the above statements are true.

3. ABC analysis is based upon the principle that

a. all items in inventory must be monitored very closely

b. an item is critical if its usage is high

c. there are usually a few critical items, and many items which are less critical

d. the safety stock (in terms of volume) should be higher for A items than for C items

e. an item is critical if its unit price is high

4. Cycle counting

a. provides a measure of inventory accuracy

b. provides a measure of inventory turnover

c. assumes that all inventory records must be verified with the same frequency

d. is a process by which inventory records are verified once a year

e. assumes that the most frequently used items must be counted more frequently

5. Among the advantages of cycle counting is that it

a. makes the annual physical inventory more acceptable to management

b. allows more rapid identification of errors and consequent remedial action than is possible with annual physical inventory

c. does not require the detailed inventory records necessary when annual physical inventory is used

d. does not require highly trained people

e. does not need to be performed for less expensive items

6. The two most basic inventory questions answered by the typical inventory model are

a. timing and cost of orders

b. quantity and cost of orders

c. timing and quantity of orders

d. order quantity and service level

e. ordering cost and carrying cost