How does the Clark-Fisher hypothesis offer an explanation for the dramatic shifts in the US labor market since 1800; from agriculture and mining to manufacturing, and from manufacturing to services?

Business process management

Question 1 (Systems)
Consider the following system diagram of a simple heating system:

a. Name two (2) feedbacks contained in this system. Explain your answer.

b. List the black boxes in this system. Explain your answer.

c. In this system, the thermostat is modeled as a subsystem. Must the thermostat be considered an open or a closed subsystem? Explain your answer.
Question 2 (Services)

a. What is the Clark-Fisher hypothesis.

b. How does the Clark-Fisher hypothesis offer an explanation for the dramatic shifts in the US labor market since 1800; from agriculture and mining to manufacturing, and from manufacturing to services?

Question 3 (Quality)
Consider three (3) production processes; A, B, and C and their quality performance relative to the lower and upper specification limits. We assume that the lower specification limit (LSL) is set at 25.0 and the upper specification limit (USL) is set at 75.0.

a. Which of these processes has the highest Cp? Explain your answer.

b. Which of these processes has the highest Cpk? Explain your answer.

c. If we ignore process A and we assume that the LSL is 60 and the USL is 70, which of the following strategies should we apply?

Strategy 1: Try shifting both processes B and C so that they become centered on 60; then try reducing their variance.

Strategy 2: First try reducing the variance of processes B and C; then try shifting them so that they become centered over 60.

Explain your answer.

Question 4 (Quality)
Consider the following graph representing one of the schools of thought on process quality management:

a. Which of the two schools of quality management does this graph represent?

b. Explain the ‘message’ of this graph? What does it tell us? Explain your answer.

c. Explain why in modern thinking about process quality, this graph is no longer considered correct.

Question 5 (Blockchain)

a. Explain why a blockchain is considered ‘immutable’; meaning that transactions stored on it cannot be undone, removed or changed.

b. Explain why blockchains have the potential to eliminate the need for trust agencies.

c. Why is blockchain a promising technique for tracking supply chains?

Question 6 (Productivity & ERP)

a. Explain the difference between the productivity and the efficiency of a process. Provide an example of both.

b. Public companies must periodically report their finances. In order to do this they must make sure that all their bookkeeping is consistent and matches up. When companies use ERP systems, this ‘closing of the books’ is typically done much(!) faster than without ERP. Why is that?

c. Why do companies spend so much money switching their information systems over to ERP? And why does it cost so much?

Question 7 (Bonus question)
According to the website airlines.com, in 2019 US airlines experienced 0.01 fatal accidents per 100,000 flights.
At how many sigmas was the US airline industry operating that year? Explain your answer.