The finished product is comparable to one that has been () edited.
A.profitably
B.probably
C.professionally
A.profitably
B.probably
C.professionally
第1题
The management of logistical (物流的) operation is about movement and storage of materials and finished products. Logistical operations start with the initial shipment of a material or component part from a supplier and are finished when a manufactured or processed product is delivered to a customer.
From the initial purchase of a material or component, the logistical process adds value by moving inventory (移动库存) when and where needed. If all goes well, a material gains value at each step of its transformation into finished inventory. In other words, an individual part has greater value after it is put into a machine. Likewise, the machine has greater value once it is delivered to a buyer.
To support manufacturing, work-in-process inventory must be moved to support final assembly. The cost of each component and its movement becomes part of the value-added process. The final or meaningful value that is added occurs only with final ownership transfer of products to customers when and where specified.
For a large manufacturer, logistical operations may consist of thousands of movements, which finally develop into the delivery of products to an industrial user, retailer, wholesaler, dealer, or other customer. For a large retailer, logistical operations may start with gaining products for resale and may finish with consumer pickup or delivery. For a hospital, logistics starts with purchasing and ends with full support of patient surgery and recovery. The significant point is that regardless of the size and type of enterprise, logistics is essential and requires continuous management attention. For better understanding it is useful to divide logistical operations into three areas: physical distribution, manufacturing support, and procurement(筹措、采购) .
Logistical operations are concerned with______.
A.transfer of materials and finished products
B.manufacturing of materials and finished products
C.inventory of materials and finished products
D.both A and C
第2题
A thorough review of the main production operation revealed nothing that might explain the increased failure and so attention was focused instead on the QC laboratory. For some years, the QC laboratory at Yaya, managed by Jane Goo, had been marginalised in the company, with its two staff working in a remote laboratory well away from other employees. Operations director Ben Janoon, who designed the internal control systems in Yaya, rarely visited the QC lab because of its remote location. He never asked for information on product failure rates to be reported to him and did not understand the science involved in the QC process. He relied on the two QC staff, Jane Goo and her assistant John Zong, both of whom did have relevant scientific qualifications.
The two QC staff considered themselves low paid. Whilst in theory they reported to Mr Janoon, in practice, they conducted their work with little contact with colleagues. The work was routine and involved testing products against a set of compliance standards. A single signature on a product compliance report was required to pass or fail in QC and these reports were then filed away with no-one else seeing them.
It was eventually established that Jane Goo had found a local buyer to pay her directly for any of Yaya’s products which had failed the QC tests. The increased failure rate had resulted from her signing products as having ‘failed QC’ when, in fact, they had passed. She kept the proceeds from the sales for herself, and also paid her assistant, John Zong, a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of the failed products.
Required:
(a) Explain typical reasons why an internal control system might be ineffective. (5 marks)
(b) Explain the internal control deficiencies that led to the increased product failures at Yaya. (10 marks)
(c) Discuss the general qualities of useful information, stating clearly how they would be of benefit to Mr Janoon, and recommend specific measures which would improve information flow from the QC lab to Mr Janoon. (10 marks)
第3题
The count will be undertaken by 15 teams of two counters from the warehouse department with Quartz’s financial controller providing overall supervision. Each team of two is allocated a number of bays within the warehouse to count and they are provided with sequentially numbered inventory sheets which contain product codes and quantities extracted from the inventory records. The counters move through each allocated bay counting the inventory and confirming that it agrees with the inventory sheets. Where a discrepancy is found, they note this on the sheet.
The warehouse is large and approximately 10% of the bays have been rented out to third parties with similar operations; these are scattered throughout the warehouse. For completeness, the counters have been asked to count the inventory for all bays noting the third party inventories on separate blank inventory sheets, and the finance department will make any necessary adjustments.
Some of Quartz’s finished goods are high in value and are stored in a locked area of the warehouse and all the counting teams will be given the code to access this area. There will be no despatches of inventory during the count and it is not anticipated that there will be any deliveries from suppliers.
Each area is counted once by the allocated team; the sheets are completed in ink, signed by the team and returned after each bay is counted. As no two teams are allocated the same bays, there will be no need to flag that an area has been counted. On completion of the count, the financial controller will confirm with each team that they have returned their inventory sheets.
Required:
(a) In respect of the inventory count procedures for Lemon Quartz Co:
(i) Identify and explain FIVE deficiencies;
(ii) Recommend a control to address each of these deficiencies; and
(iii) Describe a TEST OF CONTROL the external auditors would perform. to assess if each of these controls, if implemented, is operating effectively.
Note: The total marks will be split equally between each part. (15 marks)
(b) Quartz’s finance director has asked your firm to undertake a non-audit assurance engagement later in the year. The audit junior has not been involved in such an assignment before and has asked you to explain what an assurance engagement involves.
Required:
Explain the five elements of an assurance engagement. (5 marks)
第4题
5 The directors of Blaina Packaging Co (BPC), a well-established manufacturer of cardboard boxes, are currently
considering whether to enter the cardboard tube market. Cardboard tubes are purchased by customers whose
products are wound around tubes of various sizes ranging from large tubes on which carpets are wound, to small
tubes around which films and paper products are wound. The cardboard tubes are usually purchased in very large
quantities by customers. On average, the cardboard tubes comprise between 1% and 2% of the total cost of the
customers’ finished product.
The directors have gathered the following information:
(1) The cardboard tubes are manufactured on machines which vary in size and speed. The lowest cost machine is
priced at $30,000 and requires only one operative for its operation. A one-day training course is required in order
that an unskilled person can then operate such a machine in an efficient and effective manner.
(2) The cardboard tubes are made from specially formulated paper which, at times during recent years, has been in
short supply.
(3) At present, four major manufacturers of cardboard tubes have an aggregate market share of 80%. The current
market leader has a 26% market share. The market shares of the other three major manufacturers, one of which
is JOL Co, are equal in size. The product ranges offered by the four major manufacturers are similar in terms of
size and quality. The market has grown by 2% per annum during recent years.
(4) A recent report on the activities of a foreign-based multinational company revealed that consideration was being
given to expanding operations in their packaging division overseas. The division possesses large-scale automated
machinery for the manufacture of cardboard tubes of any size.
(5) Another company, Plastic Tubes Co (PTC) produces a narrow, but increasing, range of plastic tubes which are
capable of housing small products such as film and paper-based products. At present, these tubes are on average
30% more expensive than the equivalent sized cardboard tubes sold in the marketplace.
Required:
(a) Using Porter’s five forces model, assess the attractiveness of the option to enter the market for cardboard
tubes as a performance improvement strategy for BPC. (10 marks)
第5题
(a) Explain FOUR factors which influence the reliability of audit evidence. (4 marks)
Andromeda Industries Co (Andromeda) develops and manufactures a wide range of fast moving consumer goods. The company’s year end is 31 December 2015 and the forecast profit before tax is $8·3 million. You are the audit manager of Neptune & Co and the year-end audit is due to commence in January. The following information has been gathered during the planning process:
Inventory count
Andromeda’s raw materials and finished goods inventory are stored in 12 warehouses across the country. Each of these warehouses is expected to contain material levels of inventory at the year end. It is expected that there will be no significant work in progress held at any of the sites. Each count will be supervised by a member of Andromeda’s internal audit department and the counts will all take place on 31 December, when all movements of goods in and out of the warehouses will cease.
Research and development
Andromeda spends over $2 million annually on developing new product lines. This year it incurred expenditure on five projects, all of which are at different stages of development. Once they meet the recognition criteria under IAS 38 Intangible Assets for development expenditure, Andromeda includes the costs incurred within intangible assets. Once production commences, the intangible assets are amortised on a straight line basis over five years.
Required:
(b) Describe audit procedures you would perform. during the audit of Andromeda Industries Co:
(i) BEFORE and DURING the inventory counts; and (8 marks)
(ii) In relation to research and development expenditure. (4 marks)
(c) During the audit, the team discovers that one of the five development projects, valued at $980,000 and included within intangible assets, does not meet the criteria for capitalisation. The finance director does not intend to change the accounting treatment adopted as she considers this an immaterial amount.
Required:
Discuss the issue and describe the impact on the audit report, if any, if the issue remains unresolved. (4 marks)
第6题
This information was taken from an internal newsletter of The Knowledge Partnership LLP (TKP), a company which offers project and software consultancy work for clients based in Zeeland. The newsletter was dated 2 November 2014 and describes two projects currently being undertaken by the partnership.
Project One
In this project, one of our clients was just about to place a contract for a time recording system to help them monitor and estimate construction contracts when we were called in by the Finance Director. He was concerned about the company supplying the software package. ‘They only have an annual revenue of $5m’, he said, ‘and that worries me.’ TKP analysed software companies operating in Zeeland. It found that 200 software companies were registered in Zeeland with annual revenues of between $3m and $10m. Of these, 20 went out of business last year. This compared to a 1% failure rate for software companies with revenues of more than $100m per year. We presented this information to the client and suggested that this could cause a short-term support problem. The client immediately re-opened the procurement process. Eventually they bought a solution from a much larger well-known software supplier. It is a popular software solution, used in many larger companies.
The client has now asked us to help with the implementation of the package. A budget for the project has been agreed and has been documented in an agreed, signed-off, business case. The client has a policy of never re-visiting its business cases once they have been accepted; they see this as essential for effective cost control. We are currently working with the primary users of the software – account managers (using time and cost data to monitor contracts) and the project support office (using time and cost data to improve contract estimating) – to ensure that they can use the software effectively when it is implemented. We have also given ‘drop in’ briefing sessions for the client’s employees who are entering the time and cost data analysed by the software. They already record this information on a legacy system and so all they will see is a bright new user interface, but we need to keep them informed about our implementation. We are also looking at data migration from the current legacy system. We think some of the current data might be of poor quality, so we have established a strategy for data cleansing (through offshore data input) if this problem materialises. We currently estimate that the project will go live in May 2015.
Project Two
In this project, the client is the developer of the iProjector, a tiny phone-size projector which is portable, easy to use and offers high definition projection. The client was concerned that their product is completely dependent on a specialist image-enhancing chip designed and produced by a small start-up technology company. They asked TKP to investigate this company. We confirmed their fears. The company has been trading for less than three years and it has a very inexperienced management team. We suggested that the client should establish an escrow agreement for design details of the chip and suggested a suitable third party to hold this agreement. We also suggested that significant stocks of the chip should be maintained. The client also asked TKP to look at establishing patents for the iProjector throughout the world. Again, using our customer contacts, we put them in touch with a company which specialises in this. We are currently engaged with the client in examining the risk that a major telephone producer will launch a competitive product with functionality and features similar to the iProjector.
The iProjector is due to be launched on 1 May 2015 and we have been engaged to give advice on the launch of the product. The launch has been heavily publicised, a prestigious venue booked and over 400 attendees are expected. TKP have arranged for many newspaper journalists to attend. The product is not quite finished, so although orders will be taken at the launch, the product is not expected to ship until June 2015.
Further information:
TKP only undertakes projects in the business culture which it understands and where it feels comfortable. Consequently, it does not undertake assignments outside Zeeland.
TKP has $10,000,000 of consultant’s liability insurance underwritten by Zeeland Insurance Group (ZIG).
Required:
(a) Analyse how TKP itself and the two projects described in the scenario demonstrate the principles of effective risk management. (15 marks)
(b) Describe the principle of the triple constraint (scope, time and cost) on projects and discuss its implications in the two projects described in the scenario. (10 marks)
第7题
A.had finished
B.finished
C.would have finished
D.will finish
第8题
Section B – TWO questions ONLY to be attempted
Cuthbert is based in Ceeland and manufactures jackets for use in very cold environments by mountaineers and skiers. It also supplies the armed forces in several countries with variants of existing products, customised by the use of different coloured fabrics, labels and special fastenings for carrying equipment. Cuthbert incurs high costs on design and advertising in order to maintain the reputation of the brand.
Each jacket is made up of different shaped pieces of fabric called ‘components’. These components are purchased by Cuthbert from an external supplier. The external supplier is responsible for ensuring the quality of the components and the number of purchased components found to be defective is negligible. The cost of the components forms 80% of the direct cost of each jacket, and the prices charged by Cuthbert’s supplier for the components are the lowest in the industry. There are three stages to the production process of each jacket, which are each located in different parts of the factory:
Stage 1 – Sewing
The fabric components are sewn together by a machinist. Any manufacturing defects occurring after sewing has begun cannot be rectified, and finished garments found to be defective are heavily discounted, or in the case of bespoke variants, destroyed.
Stage 2 – Assembly
The garments are filled with insulating material and sewn together for the final time.
Stage 3 – Finishing
Labels, fastenings and zips are sewn to the finished garments. Though the process for attaching each of these is similar, machinists prefer to work only on labels, fastenings or zips to maximise the quantity which they can sew each hour.
Jackets are produced in batches of a particular style. in a range of sizes. Throughout production, the components required for each batch of jackets are accompanied by a paper batch card which records the production processes which each batch has undergone. The batch cards are input into a production spreadsheet so that the stage of completion of each batch can be monitored and the position of each batch in the factory is recorded.
There are 60 machinists working in the sewing department, and 40 in each of the assembly and finishing departments. All the machinists are managed by 10 supervisors whose duties include updating the batch cards for work done and inputting this into a spreadsheet, as well as checking the quality of work done by machinists. The supervisors report to the factory manager, who has overall responsibility for the production process.
Machinists are paid an hourly wage and a bonus according to how many items they sew each week, which usually comprises 60% of their total weekly wages.
Supervisors receive an hourly wage and a bonus according to how many items their team sews each week. The factory manager receives the same monthly salary regardless of production output. All employees are awarded a 5% annual bonus if Cuthbert achieves its budgeted net profit for the year.
Recently, a large emergency order of jackets for the Ceeland army was cancelled by the customer as it was not delivered on time due to the following quality problems and other issues in the production process:
– A supervisor had forgotten to input several batch cards and as a result batches of fabric components were lost in the factory and replacements had to be purchased.
– There were machinists available to sew buttons onto the jackets, but there was only one machinist available who had been trained to sew zips. This caused further delay to production of the batch.
– When the quality of the jackets was checked prior to despatch, many of them were found to be sewn incorrectly as the work had been rushed. By this time the agreed delivery date had already passed, and it was too late to produce a replacement batch.
This was the latest in a series of problems in production at Cuthbert, and the directors have decided to use business process reengineering (BPR) in order to radically change the production process.
The proposal being considered as an application of BPR is the adoption of ‘team working’ in the factory, the three main elements of which are as follows:
1. Production lines would re-organise into teams, where all operations on a particular product type are performed in one place by a dedicated team of machinists.
2. Each team of machinists would be responsible for the quality of the finished jacket, and for the first time, machinists would be encouraged to bring about improvements in the production process. There would no longer be the need to employ supervisors and the existing supervisors would join the teams of machinists.
3. The number of batches in production would be automatically tracked by the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags attached to each jacket. This would eliminate the need for paper batch cards, which are currently input into a spreadsheet by the supervisors.
You have been asked as a performance management consultant to advise the board on whether business process reengineering could help Cuthbert overcome the problems in its production process.
Required:
(a) Advise how the proposed use of BPR would influence the operational performance of Cuthbert. (14 marks)
(b) Evaluate the effectiveness of the current reward systems at Cuthbert, and recommend and justify how these systems would need to change if the BPR project goes ahead. (11 marks)
第9题
A.collected
B.distributed
C.assigned
D.finished
第10题
A.if he finished
B.whether he had finished
C.if had she finished
第11题
A.should be finished
B.may finish
C.will finish
D.are finished