CPP EXAM 2009 - REACTION TO THE EXAM'S !!!

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Permalink Reply by Kelvin Lui on June 29, 2009 at 2:49pm

The 1st exam was easier than I thought...

2nd exam was ok.... but didn't have time to write down everything I wanted to. I wished there were laptops available... since after all, they are testing us on the whole thought process, rather than testing our writing speed.

Did I pass??? I hope I did... I was quite confident that I passed the 1st exam. But didn't feel too confident about the case, maybe because there's no right or wrong answers for the case.

And the sad thing is that we gonna wait till September 5th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Permalink Reply by David on June 29, 2009 at 6:26pm

Kelvin - thanks for your perception from your point of view regarding the 2 (two) exams.

First Exam - from what I observed challenged most, more than the case. The case, was rather easy in terms of the basics that one could easy throw at the body of the theme. But, the recommendation, and Implementation + Executive Summary - most (I suspect) focused on ...the inventory, management style, and the financial health of the firm.

But, I THINK there was more aggregate meaning in the case. Not only management was the issue, or the regular needs to be addressed in the typical fashion, i.e standardization, ABC, and some processes in place, and respected throughout.

Yes, these are true. But, how do you really fix the multitude of "business strategic concerns". remember "Strategic Concepts", not the typical tactical , processes! Hmmm I wonder for many.

I think I had the "Strategic" answer, late in the anaylsis...of course.

The "one true Strategic answer", that many should have actually come too!

Not the "general safe answer"....or the one ....if this then this will happen.

Just my two sense, but I hope if anything the CPP's that pass actually, know how to be one.

I'm not so sure.

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Permalink Reply by Ann on June 29, 2009 at 7:57pm

I thought the exam was fair and well-rounded overall. In retrospect, I wish I'd focused less on the math aspects (like formulas, SPC, standard deviations, exponential smoothing, etc) in my studies and put a little more emphasis on definitions.

I can not for the life of me ever recall hearing the term "focused factory" before today! I took Principles of Operations & Inventory Control in 2003 - so I'm guessing that was from a more recent version than I took. (Although, not so sure I saw that in the learning objectives either???) Oddly enough, "focused factory" questions appeared twice on the exam.

I liked the case. There were a lot of issues and a lot of alternatives that could be explored. There were a lot of numbers to push around too. I see that as a plus, because when a case is cut & dried, it limits the number of approaches that can be taken to solve it. In a case like Glide-Right, there were so many avenues that could have been explored - it left the door open for a variety of approaches, and gave students the option to talk about approaches they knew well, while safely ignoring other avenues. After all, in a case, you aren't expected to identify ALL issues, or come up with multiple solutions. Just 10 or so issues and one POSSIBLE solution. I dived into the numbers, geeked out math-whiz style, and wallowed in quantitative analysis longer than I should have. I found myself a little pressed for time at the end. Still, I think I identified 15 solid issues, spoke well to the analysis and options and made a fairly decent recommendation and implementation plan.

All in, I found day one tougher than than day two. In all the past studies, that's been my experience. In the case you have some leeway and creativity. In the true/false and multi-choice, you either know it or you don't, and its a bit of a crap-shoot as to whats on the exam (say, like the "focused factory" I've never heard of!).

In the end, no complaints. Glad it's over and looking forward to finding out my grade.

I don't think I aced it - but I'm very confident I passed it.

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Permalink Reply by David on June 30, 2009 at 8:39am

Excellent "analysis" of the body of the exams. I could not agree more it was generally a well balanced scope of material. The 19 short answers to me, was the main "strategic focus", for the first exam. (more depth required the marks worth more) I answer each one and fairly well. I did not hesitate "thinking WHAT" are they asking for?

There was also trick, odd questions in terms of payment terms, "focus factory", which is somewhat logical in terms of what it does.. questions that were specific in definitions, and NAFTA or more aggregate type questions.

Not to much math. In either exam.

Even the Case, had a general "sales and customer survey type" of data, which helped give an overall perspective of the business. This I worked with the most, and offer qualitative responses to the "survey data". ROP, EOQ was already done on the two items, not much to do there, ABC maybe, but, even there I went beyond and combined the "springs", as one - to get cost savings, forget the ABC crap. Waist of time. But, a mark probably for the safe ones.

Just ABC it !!!! ? Right.

I went down a different path, and crunched the numbers looking for cost savings, I found some. But, as many probably spent to much time "trying to crunch"in vain, when more time should have been focused on qualitative thought processes.

What was anyone's recommendations?, Implementation and Executive Summary responses????

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Permalink Reply by Ann on June 30, 2009 at 10:21am

I recommended fixing the damage Teng did with the wonky RFQ first (worst case scenario you're on the hook to the lowest qualified bidder in a Contract A violation), and re-issuing the RFQ (even though the parts aren't needed! Grrr! I recommended that in spite of the excess parts, reasoning that long-term vendor relations are more important than a one-off cost-saving).

I recommended working with engineers to standardize the parts inventories. There's an excess of almost 30,000 units of springs being held in inventory (same spec, different suppliers). The cost savings aren't huge, but apply the old profit leverage effect - and hey presto - increase in profitability.

For the larger, systemic issues, I recommended that the ISO 9001 certification project be expanded to address quality assurance issues across the company, and specifically to address gaps identified in the supply chain area.

I also noted that inventory turns have decreased at an alarming rate, and that profitability and ROA were both suffering as a result. I recommended that the profit erosion be used as the "burning issue" in the presentation to other managers and exec committee as to why quality issues in the supply area are urgent, and deserve there immediate attention.

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Permalink Reply by David on June 30, 2009 at 11:32am

Very good ideas, and well thought through, tactical and some strategic concepts.

I took the business case a little differently, in terms of the "general business culture", there was a general lassie fare kind of "philosophy" or culture from the owner, and the head office.

To me the owner, mamanement, employees were really out of touch of the reality of the day.

This "surfer boy" or bike adventure/owners philosophy worked maybe for the 20-30 somethings, in the 90's, in terms of general day to day activities, social, communications and allows for a sense of company community. (I do think that is one of their strong cultural advantages.)

But, there is a limit.. to all this fuzzy stuff - and all businesses need a process. SOP, call it what you will - and there was NONE in anyone's minds in this firm. (Except maybe the controllers.)

But, no one was doing anything about the eroding financial, operational and customer service aspects. (You mights as well, close the doors, or stop the bleeding!) A slow death scenerio.

The Asia plants seemed like they had it somewhat together, but in the long run they would have issues that may affect the company to finance replacing of equipment, wear and tear on spitting out millions of parts from machine, costs...

They seemed to be considered the saving grace or cash cow, although margins/profits were tight.

Leadership aspects were minimal, EHS issues were coming, generally employees did their "own thing".

Even the business units, were disconnected. Proof came from the young engineer that came from the sister company. The Engineer Manager was fighting fires "no time to speak to Purchasing".

So much was (not) working in this Head Office & their "job shop". And the lack of business leadership, no processes per say, no continious improvement projects, a sense the company was loosing ground from the competition, and a real silo mentality in every dept....

There was TO MUCH going wrong,but like many companies "a big elephant in the room, but no one was taking notice."

Specifically with Purchasing: (Even Tengs boss could not get any processes in place), the inventory management side was a mess, the engineering Manager was not engaged, and frankly this seemingly Sr. Buyer was only on the job for 6 months, not even really know the MRP system, or if they had used it properly, probably no training, 40 hours is nothing, he did not even know many in the Engineering dept, after 6 months, or any other buyers in the company to show some force to these purchasing issues.

CPP - you may think YOU are super -man/woman - that can fix this..but not in this case.

He had NO chance to fix the systemic issues, only some minor ones. Small gains.

I recommended because: of the loss of profits, worsening customer service, potential EHS issues in the warehouse and other dept., they had not implemented ISO, they had no leadership willing to fix anything, there was obvious caos, loosing sales, profit were poor, lots of inefficiencies - financial, and operational needs....

A third party - reliability re-engineering was required.

This would both elivate many political, economic and operational issues, i.e bring them to the surface both for the owner, management and employees - in other words diagnous the situation without pointing fingers, and allow a plan in place to identify and sort out value added process, cost savings, engineering design standardization- and better through puts to outputs processes in operations.

I am sure a "custom" shop" or job shop is a very complicated, and stressful environment. You need to be as efficient as possible or you will be in trouble. This is not a standardized parts plant, nor Government buying, or a line manufacturing plant such as their sister Asia plants.

This business needed to "grow up", and improve. Start at the head office, custom shop and link the policies in through the corporation, reinforce it and get cross functional teams on it. Start small then be successful, and spread it out..or TQM. But, not until 3rd party help, ISO then TQM ....

That's my general take.

Not that I explained it exactly this way, or as easily. The time constraints of sifting through all of this stuff in the case, was limiting.

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Permalink Reply by Ralph Pozar, C.P.P. on June 30, 2009 at 12:05pm

I found the case to have a bit of everything. A mix of tactical and strategic. Four hours was not enough time to address everything but I imagine that's the point.

The day 1 exam had some pretty subjective questions though.

Overall I felt it all went okay.

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