OPERATIONS AND PROJECT Ef BE

MANAGEMENT
WORD GRAMMAR

[1] Change the words in capitals to make another word which will fit the space.

MANUFACTURING

a. One small garment factory was burned on Sunday night, but there has been no sign
of trouble affecting companies like MAS Holdings or Brandix, which ___________
____________ high-end garments, including underwear for companies like Marks
& Spencer of the UK. (The Financial Times, 17-06-2014)

b. Many believe new product launches this fall from tech giants such as Apple Inc. will
be positive for suppliers and assemblers, many of which, such as Hon Hai Precision
Industry Co Ltd, the world's largest contract electronics _____________________
________, are Taiwan-based. (www.reuters.com, 20-06- 2014)

COMPETITION

c. CME Group Inc. plans to start a European cocoa contract to ___________________

with NYSE Liffe, said Tim Andriesen, the Chicago-based company’s managing director
of agricultural commodities and alternative investments. (www.businessweek.com,
9-06-2014)

d. The deal was the latest example of a US company acquiring an overseas __________
_______ to lower its corporate tax burden – in this case through Medtronic moving
its headquarters to Ireland, where Covidien is based. (The Financial Times, 16-06-
2014)

CONTRACT

e. An undercover investigation by construction union UCATT has revealed that specialist

payroll companies are helping construction firms to switch their workers from the
status of employee to self-employed ____________________, even though many are
employed permanently by a single firm. Once they are classed as self-employed the
workers are stripped of their entitlements to holiday and sick pay, company pensions
and the national minimum wage. (The Guardian, 3-12-2012)
EFFICIENT

f. Over the past six months, Blackberry has focused on improving _________________
in all aspects of our operations to drive cost reductions and margin improvement.
(www.bbc.com, 19-06-2014)

IDENTITY

g. The rapid response time of Inditex has prompted analysts to describe it as the leading
exponent of “fast fashion”. But top managers at the Spanish group wince when they
hear the term. “I don’t _____________ with the concept of fast fashion,” Mr Isla
says. “We are not about selling a million striped T-shirts as fast as possible.” (The
Financial Times, 18-06-2014)

WORD SEMANTICS

[2] Complete the following ‘SASH’ window.

production

[3] Find a synonym, antonym, superordinate or hyponym for these words:

a.a. relocating abroad [SYN] ______________________________

b.b. economies of scale [ANT] ______________________________

c.c. supply glut [ANT] ______________________________

d.d. flow production [HYP] ______________________________

e.e. production inputs [HYP] ______________________________

f. f. tools, machinery, computers [SUP] ______________________________

 g.g. quantitative factors influencing ______________________________
location decisions [HYP]
h.h. purchasing economies [SYN] ______________________________

[4] Use the following “operations management” words to complete the sentences
below. To help you, descriptions have been added in square brackets.

set-up costs / division of labour / reject level / one-off products

a. Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, pointed out that ________________________

[specialization of the workforce] would greatly increase productivity per worker.

b. The Board wanted to move away from selling high-volume products because they felt
that in the current economic situation more money could be made from __________
_____________________ [goods made only once].

c. The engineers would like to reduce ___________________ [amounts of money laid

out to start up a business activity] by increasing the batch size or reducing the lead
time.

d. Although productivity is very high, wastage is negligible. In other words, the factory’s
_____________________________________ [measured number of faulty items] is
virtually zero.

WORD PARTNERSHIPS

[5] The words below form strong partnerships with respectively supplier and output. The
vowels are missing from each word. How many can you complete?

+ SUPPLIER + OUTPUT
a. L __ __ D __ NG a. D __ M __ S T __ C
b. R __ L __ __ B L __ b. __ N C R __ __ S __ __ N
c. M __ __ L - __ R D __ R c. T __ R T __ __ R __ S __ C T __ R
d. T __ S C __ __ T F __ R __ N d. C __ N T R __ B__ T __ __ N T __
__W e. D W __ N D L __ N G
e. S P __ R __ P __ R T S

WORD GRAMMAR
[6] Change the words in capitals to make another word which will fit the space.

COST

a. It has __________ the supermarket chain a fortune to create a market for its own-
label brand of dairy products.

b. The advertising agency has ___________ our end-of-year campaign at £1m.

PRODUCE

c. StatOil, the state-run oil ____________ has launched a $100m bid for Aran Energy,
the Irish oil explorer.

d. The ____________ of labour is the average amount of goods produced by one

worker, usually stated as the output per worker per hour.

TO WASTE

e. Waitrose has withdrawn an "eco-friendly" milk pouch and jug from all its stores after
poor sales of the supposedly revolutionary product led to high ___________.