Week 6 · Chapter

Chapter 6 — Making the Product: Operations, Quality & Information Systems

Introduction to Business Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 4 (analyze how a firm creates value through operations, quality management, and information systems, and through marketing — target markets, the marketing mix, the product life cycle, pricing and break-even, distribution, and promotion) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, and the quiz all build on it.

In plain language

Every business has to make something, whether it is a loaf of bread, a bus ride, or a cup of coffee. Operations management (the work of running the process that turns materials and work into what a business sells) is how that making gets planned and improved. This week you will find the one slow step that limits how much a business can make, which is called the bottleneck (the slowest step in a process). You will also see how firms build quality (how well a product meets what customers need) into every step instead of checking it at the end. Last, you will learn how a small business keeps its information safe.

Why you already care about this

Think about the last time you waited in a line that barely moved. Maybe the cashier was fast, but everyone was stuck waiting at the one coffee machine, the one oven, or the one person who could approve a return. You have already met a bottleneck. You felt it in your feet.

The coffee cart has the same problem. Taking an order takes 1 minute. Making the drink takes 2 minutes on the cart's one espresso machine. So the cart can make at most 30 drinks an hour, however fast the counter works. That one fact shapes the cart's hours, its staffing, and its plans to grow.

This week opens a new part of the course: making the product and selling it. You will look at how goods and services get made, how the cart plans its opening month, how fast it can serve, how firms keep mistakes out of their work, and how a small business protects its sales and customer records.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

explain operations management as turning inputs into outputs, for goods and for services;
sort a production process as mass production, mass customization, or customization, and as continuous or intermittent;
describe a location decision, resource planning, a Gantt chart, and production control for a small business;
read a process map, find the bottleneck, and compute capacity in an hour and in a rush, before and after adding a machine;
describe total quality management, Six Sigma, lean production, JIT inventory, and the ISO 9000 standards;
name the data a small business keeps, the common threats to it, and the basic protections against them.

Carry this line with you: the slowest step sets the pace — speed anywhere else is wasted.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1, The Idea and Its Environment, introduced the cart and its SWOT; Week 2, The Market It Sells Into: Economics for Business, placed the cart in its market; Week 3, From Idea to Plan: Entrepreneurship, Small Business & the Business Plan, built the cart's plan and its start-up list; Week 4, Choosing a Legal Form: Ownership, Franchising & Mergers, chose the cart's legal form; Week 5, What the Business Owes: Ethics & Social Responsibility, asked what a business owes the people its choices touch.
This week: a new unit begins, on making the product and selling it. This week covers operations management, the production process, location, resource planning and scheduling, the cart's process map and capacity, quality, and information systems and cybersecurity.
How they connect: the start-up list from Week 3 already counted the cart's equipment and its opening inventory; this week you watch that equipment work and find out how many drinks it can make.
Where we're going next: Week 7, Who Buys and at What Price: Marketing, Products & Pricing, takes the cart's costs and its price and finds how many drinks it must sell to break even.

Two earlier weeks matter most here. In Week 1 you met the factors of production: natural resources, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Operations is where those factors get put to work. In Week 3 you built the cart's start-up list: 20,000 dollars for the cart and its equipment, 2,000 dollars of opening inventory, and 8,000 dollars of cash cushion. This week the espresso machine in that first line gets its own job description, and the 2,000 dollars of inventory needs a plan.

1. Turn inputs into outputs: what operations management is

Picture an illustrative family farm at dawn. Seed, soil, water, a tractor, and a crew's hours go in. Boxes of vegetables come out, ready for a weekend market stall. Now picture an illustrative city transit agency. Buses, drivers, fuel, and a route map go in. Rides come out: a nurse gets to a night shift, and a student gets to class.

Both of them take things in, work on them, and send something more valuable out. That is the core of every business's operations.

Operations management is the work of planning, running, and improving the process that turns a business's inputs, such as materials, labor, and equipment, into the goods or services it sells.

The production process is the set of steps a business follows to turn its inputs into the goods or services it sells.

Worked example — two operations, side by side. The farm and the transit agency are illustrative, and the example uses no figures.

Inputs. The farm uses seed, soil, water, equipment, and labor. The transit agency uses buses, fuel, drivers, and a schedule.
The process. The farm plants, waters, harvests, washes, and packs. The agency plans routes, runs buses, and keeps them repaired.
Outputs. The farm sends out boxes of vegetables, which are goods. The agency sends out rides, which are a service.
What the managers watch. The farm manager watches how many boxes the crew can pack in a morning. The agency manager watches whether buses arrive on time.

In words: a farm and a bus system look nothing alike, but each one turns inputs into outputs through a process somebody has to plan and improve. That is why operations management covers services as much as goods.

Misconception check. Students often think operations management happens only in factories, with assembly lines and hard hats. That is tempting, because the classic picture of "making things" is a factory floor. But a bus route, a hospital kitchen, and a coffee cart all turn inputs into outputs too. The cure is to ask of any business: what goes in, what happens to it, and what comes out?

Memory hook: in, through, out.

2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way

Picture an illustrative neighborhood bakery. Before sunrise, a mixer and an oven turn out tray after tray of the same sandwich loaf. Later in the day, a customer orders a birthday cake: the bakery's standard sponge, with the buyer's choice of flavor and a message on top. And once in a while, a couple orders a wedding cake designed from scratch with the baker.

The same small bakery runs three different kinds of production. They differ in how much each item is made the same way.

Mass production is making large numbers of identical items the same way every time, so that each one costs less to make.
Mass customization is making items from standard parts and steps while letting each buyer choose some features, so many buyers get a personalized item at close to the cost of mass production.
Customization is making each item from scratch to one buyer's own wishes, one at a time.

Production also differs in whether the process keeps running or stops and resets.

A continuous process is a production process that runs for long stretches without stopping, making the same output the whole time.
An intermittent process is a production process that stops and resets to make different outputs, in short runs or one order at a time.

Worked example — sorting the bakery's work. The bakery is illustrative.

Sandwich loaves: identical, made the same way in large numbers. That is mass production. The bread line runs for long stretches without stopping, so it is a continuous process.
Birthday cakes: the same sponge every time, with the buyer choosing the flavor and the message. That is mass customization. The cake bench stops and resets for each order, so it is an intermittent process.
The wedding cake: designed from scratch for one couple. That is customization, and it is intermittent too.

In words: the loaves are cheap because they are all alike, the birthday cakes feel personal while still using a standard base, and the wedding cake costs the most because almost nothing about it is repeated.

Misconception check. Students often think mass customization means building every item from scratch, since each buyer gets something personal. That is tempting, because "custom" is in the name. But mass customization starts from standard parts and steps and lets the buyer choose among options; only true customization starts over for each buyer. The cure is to ask: does every order begin from the same base?

Pause and try this. Choose one: (a) name a product you have bought that was mass-customized, and say which part was standard and which part you chose; or (b) explain why a bus route is closer to a continuous process than a bike-repair bench is.

Memory hook: same, same-with-choices, or one of a kind.

3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule

Picture the cart's owner with a calendar and a list of things that must happen before the first drink is sold. Where should the cart park? Who supplies the beans? When does the helper get trained? Planning the operation comes before running it.

The first choice is where to work.

A location decision is the choice of where a business makes or delivers its product, weighing nearness to customers, suppliers, and workers against what each place costs.

The cart has an unusual answer. In Week 1 its SWOT listed a strength: it can move to where the customers are. Its opportunities included an office building opening two blocks away and a weekend farmers' market looking for vendors. A shop with four walls makes its location decision once; the cart can make it again every morning.

Next comes having the right things ready at the right time.

Resource planning is planning the inventory, the suppliers, and the schedule a business needs, so that materials, people, and equipment are ready when the work calls for them.

Inventory is the materials and goods a business keeps on hand to make or sell its product.

For the cart, inventory means beans, milk, cups, and lids. The start-up list set aside 2,000 dollars for opening inventory. The bean supplier matters too: in Week 3 you saw that a supplier can have bargaining power, and a late delivery can stop the whole cart.

Then the work needs a schedule.

A Gantt chart is a scheduling chart that shows each task of a project as a horizontal bar against a timeline, so you can see when each task starts and ends and which tasks overlap.

Worked example — the cart's opening-month Gantt chart, described in words. The cart and its plan are illustrative, and the example uses no figures.

The timeline runs left to right across the opening month.
Secure the permit is the first bar, at the start of the month, because nothing can open without it.
Order beans and cups and train the helper are two bars that run side by side in the middle of the month; they overlap because they do not depend on each other.
Test the menu starts after the helper is trained and the first beans arrive, so its bar begins where those two end.
Open is the last bar, at the end of the month.

In words: the chart shows at a glance what must come first, what can happen at the same time, and what has to wait. If the bean order runs late, you can see right away that testing the menu, and then opening, will slide too.

That last point is the job of one more tool.

Production control is tracking the work against its plan and schedule, and correcting course when something slips.

In practice (your tools). You can draw a simple Gantt chart in any free spreadsheet, such as Google Sheets. Type the tasks down column A, one per row. Put the days of the month across row 1, starting in column B. Then fill in the cells for the days each task runs, so each task becomes a shaded bar. Add a text label to each bar as well, so the chart does not depend on color alone.

Misconception check. Students often think a schedule is made once and then filed, like a form. That is tempting, because drawing the chart feels like the hard part. But plans slip: a delivery runs late or a trainee needs another session. The cure is production control: check the work against the chart as you go, and move the bars when reality moves.

Memory hook: plan the bars, then watch the bars.

4. Find the bottleneck: the cart's process map and capacity

Picture the cart on a busy weekday morning. A customer walks up, orders, pays, and steps aside to wait. Behind the counter, the drink is made on the cart's one espresso machine. Then the next drink starts.

To see how many customers the cart can serve, you first lay out every step.

A process map is a step-by-step list or drawing of how a product or service moves from start to finish, with the time each step takes.

The cart's process map has two steps. Each step has a step time, the minutes it takes for one drink.

The counter step (taking the order and payment) takes 1 minute per drink.
The drink-preparation step takes 2 minutes per drink on the one espresso machine.

Two more terms explain what those times mean.

A bottleneck is the slowest step in a process, the one that limits how much the whole process can produce.

Capacity is the most output a process can produce in a given time, set by its slowest step.

Worked example — the cart's capacity, before and after a second machine. The cart's process map is illustrative, constructed for this course and not real data; times are in minutes per drink, and capacity is in drinks.

Counter step: taking the order and payment takes 1 minute per drink.
Drink-preparation step: preparing a drink takes 2 minutes on the one espresso machine.
Bottleneck: the slowest step is drink preparation, at 2 minutes per drink, so it sets the pace for the whole cart.
Capacity with one machine: 60 ÷ 2 = 30 drinks an hour.
Morning rush with one machine: 30 × 4 = 120 drinks in a four-hour rush.
With a second machine and a second person: preparation runs at an effective 1 minute per drink, so both steps take 1 minute and the counter caps capacity at 60 ÷ 1 = 60 drinks an hour.
The change: 60 ÷ 30 = 2, so the second machine doubles the cart's capacity.

In words: with one machine the cart can make at most 30 drinks an hour, 120 in a four-hour rush, however fast the counter works, because every drink waits its turn at the machine. A second machine and a second person lift the limit to 60 drinks an hour versus 30 before, twice as many, and the counter becomes the new limit.

Notice the decision hiding in that result. If the cart's line is longer than 30 people an hour, adding a faster cash register would change nothing; only the machine step can lift the limit. That tells the owner where the next equipment dollar should go. It also tells you what to watch next: once both steps take 1 minute, any further gain needs a faster counter as well.

Caveat: this process map is a model. It assumes every drink takes the same time and that customers arrive steadily. Real mornings have slow orders and sudden crowds, so a real cart serves fewer than its capacity in some hours. Capacity is the ceiling, not a promise.

In practice (your tools). You can check the cart's capacity in any free spreadsheet, such as Google Sheets. Type 1 in cell B2 for the counter time and 2 in cell B3 for the preparation time. In cell B4 type =60/MAX(B2:B3) for the capacity in drinks an hour; MAX picks the slowest step. In cell B5 type =B4*4 for the drinks in a four-hour rush. Change B3 to 1 to see the capacity with a second machine.

Misconception check. Students often think a process runs as fast as its fastest step, so a 1-minute counter means 60 drinks an hour. That is tempting, because the counter is the step customers see. But every drink must also pass through the machine, and the machine can finish only one drink every 2 minutes. The cure is to find the slowest step first: capacity is minutes in an hour divided by the bottleneck's step time.

Memory hook: the line moves at the speed of its slowest step.

5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check

Picture an illustrative hospital kitchen that sends meal trays up to the people staying in its wards. Now and then a tray goes out with the wrong item, which matters a great deal for someone on a special diet. Across town, an illustrative bike shop keeps seeing the same bikes come back for the same repair. Both have a quality problem, and in both, checking harder at the end will not fix it.

The modern answer is to build quality into the process itself. Five approaches are widely taught.

Total quality management is a quality approach in which everyone in a firm works to improve every process continuously, instead of leaving quality to an inspection at the end.
Six Sigma is a quality program, introduced at Motorola in 1986, that aims for no more than 3.4 defects per 1,000,000 opportunities and works through five steps: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control.
Lean production is running a process by removing every step that adds no value for the customer.
JIT inventory is an inventory approach in which materials arrive as they are needed, so a business keeps a small, steady stock instead of a large pile.
ISO 9000 is a family of international standards for quality management that a firm can follow to show it runs a working quality system.

Worked example — the hospital kitchen walks the five Six Sigma steps. The kitchen is illustrative, and the example uses no figures.

Define: the problem is a wrong item on a tray for someone on a special diet.
Measure: the kitchen counts how many trays go out wrong each week, so it knows where it starts.
Analyze: the count shows that most errors happen at the shift change, when one cook hands the tray line to the next.
Improve: the kitchen adds a short checklist that both cooks read together at the hand-off.
Control: the kitchen keeps counting every week, so it can see whether the fix holds.

In words: the kitchen did not add an inspector at the door; it found the step where errors are born and changed that step, then kept watching.

Worked example — the bike shop thinks lean and total quality. The shop is illustrative, and the example uses no figures.

Total quality management: every mechanic, not only the owner, logs which repairs come back, so everyone helps find the cause.
The cause: the log shows that brake adjustments come back most, and that each mechanic tightens the cables a slightly different way.
Lean production: the shop writes one standard way to do the job and drops an extra test ride that added time but caught nothing the standard check missed.

In words: the shop made the work itself better and removed a step that did not help the customer, instead of hiring someone to check bikes at the door.

The cart uses one of these ideas every day. Milk spoils, so the cart gets milk delivered as it is needed instead of storing a month's supply. That is JIT inventory. The cart still keeps a small stock on hand for the morning, because a cart with no milk at all cannot sell a latte.

ISO 9000 is named here so you will recognize it. Firms large and small follow these standards to show customers that they run a working quality system; this course does not go into their details.

Misconception check. Students often think quality means inspecting products at the end and throwing out the bad ones. That is tempting, because a final check is easy to picture. But an end check only catches mistakes after they are made and paid for. The cure is to ask where in the process the mistake is born, and fix that step.

Misconception check — JIT is not zero. Students often think JIT means a business keeps no inventory at all. That is tempting, because the idea sounds like everything arrives at the very moment it is used. But JIT keeps a small, steady stock and times deliveries to need; the stock shrinks, it does not disappear. The cure is to say "small and timed", not "none".

Pause and try this. Choose one: (a) describe a place where you have worked or volunteered and name one step that added no value for the customer; or (b) explain in two sentences why counting errors (the measure step) comes before fixing them.

Memory hook: build it in, don't inspect it in.

6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections

Picture an illustrative community food bank. Its volunteer coordinator keeps a sign-up sheet online, a list of the families it serves, a record of donations, and a list of food suppliers. One morning a message arrives that looks like it is from the food bank's donation website. It asks the coordinator to sign in again "to keep the account active".

That message is a test the food bank did not know it was taking. Every business runs on information, and that information can be stolen, locked, or lost.

An information system is the people, devices, software, and records a business uses to collect, store, and use its data, such as sales, customers, suppliers, and payroll.

For the cart, the information system is small: a card reader that records sales, a phone with the supplier's number and the helper's schedule, and a spreadsheet for payroll. It is small, but the cart cannot run a morning without it.

Cybersecurity is protecting a business's devices, accounts, and data from theft, damage, and access by people who should not have it.

Four common threats cover most of what goes wrong for a small business.

Phishing is a message that tricks someone into opening a harmful attachment or link, or into handing over a password.
Malicious software is software built to harm a device or to steal from it, such as viruses, worms, and ransomware.
Ransomware is malicious software that locks a business's files or devices and demands a payment to unlock them.
Unauthorized access to accounts, and lost or stolen devices, round out the list.

A short set of basic protections covers most of those threats: recognize and report phishing, use strong passwords with a password manager, turn on multifactor authentication, keep software updated promptly, and make regular backups.

A password manager is an app that creates and stores a strong, different password for each account, so a person does not have to remember them all.
Multifactor authentication is a sign-in that asks for a second proof of identity besides the password, such as a code sent to a phone.
A backup is a copy of a business's data kept in a separate place, so it can be restored if the original is lost, locked, or damaged.

Worked example — matching the food bank's risks to protections. The food bank is illustrative, and the example uses no figures.

The sign-in message is phishing. The protection is to recognize it, not click, and report it; the coordinator goes to the donation site directly instead of using the link.
A stolen password would open the donation account to a stranger. Multifactor authentication means the stranger would still need the code sent to the coordinator's phone.
Ransomware could lock the list of families the night before a distribution day. A recent backup kept in a separate place lets the food bank restore the list and keep serving.
A lost laptop holds the volunteer list. A strong password, with updates kept current, makes the laptop much harder to get into.

In words: each threat has a matching habit, and none of the habits needs an IT department. They need everyone who touches the data to use them.

Honesty note: these protections lower risk; they do not remove it. This course names habits, not products, and it recommends no specific security product.

Misconception check. Students often think cybersecurity is only the IT department's job. That is tempting, because security sounds technical. But phishing works by fooling a person, not a computer, and a small business like the cart or the food bank may have no IT department at all. The cure is to see each habit as part of everyone's job: the helper who spots a fake message is doing cybersecurity.

Pause and try this. Choose one: (a) list the kinds of data a business you know keeps, and name the one whose loss would hurt it most; or (b) explain why multifactor authentication still helps after a password has been stolen.

Memory hook: spot it, lock it, update it, back it up.

Key terms

operations management — The work of planning, running, and improving the process that turns a business's inputs, such as materials, labor, and equipment, into the goods or services it sells. (first used: 1. Turn inputs into outputs: what operations management is)
production process — The set of steps a business follows to turn its inputs into the goods or services it sells. (first used: 1. Turn inputs into outputs: what operations management is)
mass production — Making large numbers of identical items the same way every time, so that each one costs less to make. (first used: 2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way)
mass customization — Making items from standard parts and steps while letting each buyer choose some features, so many buyers get a personalized item at close to the cost of mass production. (first used: 2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way)
customization — Making each item from scratch to one buyer's own wishes, one at a time. (first used: 2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way)
continuous process — A production process that runs for long stretches without stopping, making the same output the whole time. (first used: 2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way)
intermittent process — A production process that stops and resets to make different outputs, in short runs or one order at a time. (first used: 2. Sort the process: how much is made the same way)
location decision — The choice of where a business makes or delivers its product, weighing nearness to customers, suppliers, and workers against what each place costs. (first used: 3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule)
resource planning — Planning the inventory, the suppliers, and the schedule a business needs, so that materials, people, and equipment are ready when the work calls for them. (first used: 3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule)
inventory — The materials and goods a business keeps on hand to make or sell its product. (first used: 3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule)
Gantt chart — A scheduling chart that shows each task of a project as a horizontal bar against a timeline, so you can see when each task starts and ends and which tasks overlap. (first used: 3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule)
production control — Tracking the work against its plan and schedule, and correcting course when something slips. (first used: 3. Plan the cart's opening month: location, resources, and the schedule)
process map — A step-by-step list or drawing of how a product or service moves from start to finish, with the time each step takes. (first used: 4. Find the bottleneck: the cart's process map and capacity)
bottleneck — The slowest step in a process, the one that limits how much the whole process can produce. (first used: 4. Find the bottleneck: the cart's process map and capacity)
capacity — The most output a process can produce in a given time, set by its slowest step. (first used: 4. Find the bottleneck: the cart's process map and capacity)
total quality management — A quality approach in which everyone in a firm works to improve every process continuously, instead of leaving quality to an inspection at the end. (first used: 5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check)
Six Sigma — A quality program, introduced at Motorola in 1986, that aims for no more than 3.4 defects per 1,000,000 opportunities and works through five steps: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. (first used: 5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check)
lean production — Running a process by removing every step that adds no value for the customer. (first used: 5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check)
JIT inventory — An inventory approach in which materials arrive as they are needed, so a business keeps a small, steady stock instead of a large pile. (first used: 5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check)
ISO 9000 — A family of international standards for quality management that a firm can follow to show it runs a working quality system. (first used: 5. Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check)
information system — The people, devices, software, and records a business uses to collect, store, and use its data, such as sales, customers, suppliers, and payroll. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
cybersecurity — Protecting a business's devices, accounts, and data from theft, damage, and access by people who should not have it. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
phishing — A message that tricks someone into opening a harmful attachment or link, or into handing over a password. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
malicious software — Software built to harm a device or to steal from it, such as viruses, worms, and ransomware. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
ransomware — Malicious software that locks a business's files or devices and demands a payment to unlock them. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
password manager — An app that creates and stores a strong, different password for each account, so a person does not have to remember them all. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
multifactor authentication — A sign-in that asks for a second proof of identity besides the password, such as a code sent to a phone. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)
backup — A copy of a business's data kept in a separate place, so it can be restored if the original is lost, locked, or damaged. (first used: 6. Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections)

Summary

Operations management turns inputs into outputs, for services as well as goods.
Mass production repeats one item; mass customization adds buyer choices to a standard base; customization starts over for each buyer.
A continuous process keeps running; an intermittent process stops and resets for each run or order.
Resource planning gets inventory, suppliers, and the schedule ready; a Gantt chart shows the tasks as bars; production control keeps the work on plan.
The bottleneck is the slowest step, and capacity is minutes in an hour divided by its step time.
With one machine the cart makes at most 30 drinks an hour, 120 in a four-hour rush; a second machine and person raise that to 60 an hour.
Total quality management, Six Sigma, lean production, and JIT inventory build quality and efficiency into the process; ISO 9000 is a family of quality-management standards.
A small business protects its data by spotting phishing, using strong passwords and a password manager, turning on multifactor authentication, updating software, and backing up.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative campus bookstore runs a textbook buyback counter with three steps: check-in takes 2 minutes per student, the price lookup takes 5 minutes per student with one clerk, and payment takes 1 minute. Find the bottleneck, the capacity in students an hour, and how many students the counter can serve in a 3-hour buyback window. Then a second clerk joins the price lookup, so it runs at an effective 2.5 minutes per student. What is the new capacity, and which step is the bottleneck now?
Sort each illustrative operation as mass production, mass customization, or customization, and as continuous or intermittent: (a) a juice plant filling identical bottles all day; (b) a sandwich counter where each buyer picks the bread, filling, and toppings from a set menu; (c) a tailor sewing one suit to a customer's measurements.
An illustrative pizza shop gets fresh dough delivered every morning and keeps only enough for one day. A classmate says, "So the shop has no inventory." Explain what is right and what is wrong in that statement.
An illustrative ride-share driver gets a text that says the driver's account is locked and gives a link to sign in. Name the threat, and name two protections that would help.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The steps take 2, 5, and 1 minutes, so the price lookup, at 5 minutes, is the bottleneck. Capacity: 60 ÷ 5 = 12 students an hour. In a 3-hour window: 12 × 3 = 36 students. With a second clerk, the lookup runs at 2.5 minutes, but check-in still takes 2 minutes, so the lookup is still the slowest step. New capacity: 60 ÷ 2.5 = 24 students an hour, twice as many as before. The bottleneck did not move this time, because the lookup is still slower than check-in.
(a) The juice plant is mass production, and it runs as a continuous process. (b) The sandwich counter is mass customization: the menu is standard and the buyer chooses among options; it is intermittent, because each order is assembled one at a time. (c) The tailor is customization, and it is intermittent. The trap is calling (b) customization; the buyer chooses, but only from a set menu.
What is right: the shop uses JIT inventory, because the dough arrives as it is needed. What is wrong: the shop still keeps one day of dough on hand, and that dough is inventory. JIT keeps a small, steady stock; it does not mean zero.
The threat is phishing: a message that tries to trick the driver into handing over a password. Two protections: recognize the message, do not click the link, and report it (opening the app directly instead); and turn on multifactor authentication, so a stolen password alone cannot open the account. A password manager also helps, because it will not fill in a password on a fake site.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week the course turns to pricing, where the cart's costs meet the break-even model, which finds how many drinks it must sell before it earns a profit.

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