CSCP (ASCM) flashcards

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

SCOR model

Reference framework describing a supply chain through six management processes: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, Return, and Enable. Used to structure, measure, and benchmark supply chain performance.

Bullwhip effect

Upstream amplification of demand variability. Main causes are demand-signal processing or forecast updating, order batching, price fluctuations, and shortage gaming during rationing.

Postponement

Delaying final product configuration or the point of differentiation until customer demand is known, which lowers inventory risk and improves responsiveness to volatile demand.

Push-pull boundary

Point in a supply chain where forecast-driven push processes give way to demand-driven pull processes; its position reflects where economies of scale end and uncertainty begins.

Square root law

Rule of thumb stating that total safety stock across n identical stocking locations is roughly the square root of n times the safety stock needed at one consolidated location.

Kraljic matrix

Two-by-two segmentation of purchased items by profit impact and supply risk, producing four categories: strategic, leverage, bottleneck, and non-critical, each with a different sourcing approach.

Total cost of ownership

Sum of all costs of acquiring, using, and disposing of a good, including price, freight, duties, inventory carrying cost, quality, risk, and disposal rather than purchase price alone.

Level capacity strategy

Holding production capacity constant and absorbing demand variation through inventory build, backlogs, or overtime; favors stable operations at the cost of higher inventory.

Chase capacity strategy

Adjusting capacity each period to match demand, which keeps inventory low but incurs costs of hiring, layoffs, overtime, and idle equipment as demand swings.

Cross-docking

Flow of inbound goods directly to outbound vehicles with little or no storage, cutting handling cost and inventory while requiring tight scheduling and accurate inbound shipments.

Order winners and qualifiers

Order winners are criteria that differentiate a firm and cause the customer to buy; qualifiers are minimum standards a supplier must meet merely to be considered.

Sales and operations planning

Monthly cross-functional process that balances demand, supply, and financial plans, ending in an executive consensus plan covering a rolling horizon of roughly 18 to 24 months.

Economic order quantity

Order size that minimizes the combined cost of ordering and holding inventory, computed as the square root of 2DS divided by H, where H is annual holding cost per unit.

Reorder point

Inventory position at which a replenishment order is triggered; equals expected demand during lead time plus safety stock for independent-demand items with a fixed review period.

Safety stock

Buffer inventory protecting against demand and lead-time variability; with normally distributed demand it equals the z factor times demand standard deviation times the square root of lead time.

Mean absolute deviation

Average of the absolute differences between actual and forecast values, calculated as the sum of absolute errors divided by the number of periods; used to size safety stock.

Tracking signal

Running sum of forecast errors divided by mean absolute deviation; values outside roughly plus or minus four indicate persistent forecast bias rather than random error.

Material requirements planning

Time-phased planning of components and raw materials using the bill of materials, inventory records, and lead times to generate planned order releases for dependent demand items.

Available-to-promise

Uncommitted portion of supply, after existing commitments, that can still be promised to new customer orders in a given period; used by sales to quote reliable delivery dates.

Takt time

Available production time divided by the rate of customer demand; it sets the pace at which a leveled, synchronized production line should complete one unit.

Kanban

Visual or electronic signal that authorizes upstream replenishment of exactly what a downstream operation has consumed, implementing pull scheduling in a lean system.

Cash-to-cash cycle

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

Theory of constraints

Improvement method with five steps, identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate the constraint, and repeat; the constraint determines the throughput of the entire system.

Distribution requirements planning

Time-phased replenishment planning across a distribution network that aggregates warehouse needs back through regional centers to the plant, driving transportation and inventory plans.

DMAIC

Six Sigma roadmap for improving an existing process: Define the problem, Measure current performance, Analyze root causes, Improve the process, and Control the gains.

Perfect order fulfillment

Percentage of orders delivered complete, on time, damage-free, and with correct documentation; a strict SCOR reliability metric reflecting the whole order fulfillment process.

SCOR performance attributes

Five attributes used to structure supply chain metrics: reliability, responsiveness, agility, cost, and asset management efficiency, each supported by level-1 and lower-level metrics.

Five whys

Iterative technique of asking why a problem occurred until the underlying root cause is reached, preventing teams from acting on symptoms rather than causes.

PDCA cycle

Plan, Do, Check, Act: iterative improvement loop where a change is planned, piloted, evaluated against expected results, then standardized or corrected before repeating.

Seven wastes

Lean categories of non-value-adding activity: transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, overprocessing, and defects, commonly remembered by the acronym TIMWOOD.

Risk response strategies

Four options chosen after assessing likelihood and impact: avoid the activity, mitigate or reduce exposure, transfer risk through contracts or insurance, or accept it with a contingency plan.

Triple bottom line

Performance framework measuring results on social, environmental, and economic dimensions simultaneously, used to balance stakeholder value against purely financial measures.