CIPS L4M7 Exam Questions

Including a currency fluctuation clause protects against exchange rate volatility, which can increase the final cost if the currency depreciates. Whole-life asset management often incorporates such risk management measures to ensure cost predictability and avoid unanticipated financial impact on long-term projects.

Cross-docking is the practice of unloading goods from inbound delivery vehicles and loading them directly onto outbound vehicles. By eliminating or minimizing warehouse storage costs, space requirements and inventory handling, cross-docking can streamline supply chains and help them move goods to market faster and more efficiently.

Cross-docking usually takes place in a dedicated docking terminal in a warehouse, where inbound goods are first received at a dock and sorted according to their final destinations. They are then moved to the other side of the dock via forklift, conveyor belt or other equipment and loaded on outbound vehicles.

Cross-docking works best with products that need to be transported quickly, such as food, that have already been sorted and labeled for customers, do not need quality inspections or have steady demand.

- CIPS study guide page 16

- Cross-docking

LO 1, AC 1.1

Decommissioning or disposal should start with the original specifications of the assets so that the organisation and supplier can make an appropriate plan. Some specifications also mention the is-sues regarding to end-of-life environmental factors.

LO 3, AC 3.3

RFID tags have very limited range. The following table was extracted from Wikipedia:

RFID tags can be used to do the following:

- Track individual items

- Track boxes of products, cages of products and pallet

- Track containers with multiple loads

- Locate equipment within a building

- Trigger alarms should equipment or stock be removed without authorisation.

RFID tags are made of three different components: an RFID chip, which is an integrated circuit (IC), an antenna, and a substrate. RFID chips are very small integrated circuit incorporating a small memory capability - many are smaller than 2mm square and 2mm thick. Despite its size, many can hold 2000 characters of data. Many retailers simply use the tag as a thick label and print both sides with product information and perhaps a barcode.

It is important to note that there are multiple standards in use for RFID - some of these are standardised for industries but there are also national standards in operations. These standards need to be investigated before investment as not all readers work with all cards. GS1 is a non-for-profit organisation which make the standards for barcodes and RFID.

LO 1, AC 1.2

The most common subjective forecasting techniques include the following:

- Market surveys

- Employee surveys

- Expert knowledge (Delphi method is a method using expert knowledge)

- Test marketing

Cycle counting is a periodic analysis of inventory in a storage location which is conducted through the counting of samples instead of physically counting the entire inventory available, so as to quickly have an accurate estimate of the inventory available without causing a stop to the day to day working as is the case with physically counting every unit.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of fac-tor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Weighted moving averages assign a heavier weighting to more current data points since they are more relevant than data points in the distant past. The sum of the weighting should add up to 1 (or 100 percent).

LO 2, AC 2.3