CSCP (WorldatWork Rewards Certifications) flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Strategic fit

Alignment between a firm's competitive priorities and its supply chain capabilities, so the chain's responsiveness or efficiency matches the uncertainty of the demand it serves.

Implied demand uncertainty

Demand uncertainty a supply chain must absorb, driven by new-product share, forecast error, product variety, service level, and short customer lead times.

Efficiency frontier

Set of supply chain configurations that deliver the best service for a given cost; firms below it can improve only through structural or technological change.

Cash-to-cash cycle

Days inventory outstanding plus days sales outstanding minus days payables outstanding; measures how long cash is tied up in operations before collection.

SCOR performance attributes

Standard framework measuring supply chain reliability, responsiveness, agility, cost, and asset management efficiency, used to benchmark and set improvement targets.

Center-of-gravity method

Locational technique that places a facility at the demand-weighted average of coordinates to minimize transportation distance, then adjusts for capacity and labor constraints.

Risk pooling

Consolidating demand across locations or products reduces total safety stock, because independent variability partly cancels; benefit scales with the square root of locations.

Postponement

Delaying final product differentiation until customer orders are known, holding generic inventory and configuring variants late to cut forecast risk and finished-goods stock.

Incoterms risk transfer

Standard trade terms defining where cost and risk pass from seller to buyer; FCA and FOB transfer risk at origin, DAP and DDP at destination.

HS classification

Harmonized System code assigned to a traded good; it determines the applicable duty rate and eligibility for preferential trade treatment.

Tracking signal

Running sum of forecast errors divided by mean absolute deviation; values outside roughly plus or minus four signal persistent forecast bias.

MAPE

Mean absolute percentage error: average of absolute forecast errors divided by actual demand, expressed as a percentage; undefined when actuals are zero.

Exponential smoothing

Forecast method weighting the latest actual and prior forecast by alpha; a higher alpha reacts faster to change but amplifies random noise.

Safety stock formula

Safety stock equals the service-level z factor multiplied by the standard deviation of demand during lead time; combine demand and lead-time variability when both are uncertain.

Fill rate versus cycle service

Cycle service level is the probability of no stockout in a cycle; fill rate is the share of demand met from stock and exceeds cycle service for the same inventory.

Newsvendor critical ratio

Optimal in-stock probability for a single-order item equals underage cost divided by the sum of underage and overage costs.

EOQ

Economic order quantity equals the square root of twice annual demand times order cost divided by annual holding cost per unit; minimizes total ordering and holding cost.

S&OP consensus plan

Rolling process reconciling a single demand plan with supply, finance, and product plans, using statistical baseline plus sales and customer input, frozen at the demand-time fence.

Kraljic portfolio matrix

Segments purchased items by spend and supply risk into leverage, strategic, bottleneck, and noncritical categories, each warranting a different sourcing approach.

Total cost of ownership

Full cost of a purchase including price, freight, duties, quality, inventory carrying, administration, supplier management, and risk of failure or obsolescence.

Make-or-buy analysis

Comparison of fully loaded internal production cost against supplier price plus transition, quality, and coordination costs, using avoidable rather than allocated fixed costs.

Incentive contract

Agreement sharing cost or performance risk between buyer and supplier, typically with target cost, sharing ratio, and ceiling, used when uncertainty is high.

Supplier development

Structured program of training, on-site support, and shared targets to raise a strategically important but capability-constrained supplier's performance and quality.

Little's Law

Inventory in a process equals throughput multiplied by flow time; used to link work-in-process, cycle time, and output rate.

Takt time

Available production time divided by customer demand rate; sets the pace at which a line must produce to meet demand without excess inventory.

Theory of Constraints

Improvement method that identifies the bottleneck, exploits and subordinates work to it, elevates its capacity, then repeats the cycle as the constraint moves.

Process capability Cpk

Capability index accounting for process centering: the distance from the mean to the nearer specification limit divided by three standard deviations.

Cross-docking

Distribution method where inbound goods are transferred directly to outbound vehicles with minimal storage, reducing handling, inventory, and order cycle time.

Bullwhip effect

Amplification of demand variability moving upstream, caused by forecast updating, order batching, price promotions, and shortage rationing gaming.

CPFR

Collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment: joint business planning, shared forecasts, and exception management between trading partners to synchronize supply and demand.

Risk exposure

Product of an event's probability and its financial impact; compared with mitigation cost to decide whether to avoid, reduce, transfer, or accept the risk.

Resilience levers

Redundancy through buffer stock and dual sourcing, flexibility through contracts and postponement, and visibility through tier mapping and early-warning monitoring.

Supplier financial distress signals

Deteriorating margins, stretched payables, late deliveries, key-person departures, and credit downgrades that indicate elevated risk of supply interruption.