Raw materials are basic input materials - they are only processed limitedly or have not been pro-cessed at all. Their values are equal to acquisition cost and are the lowest value of stock held.
Secondary components are the products that are combined with others to produce the finished goods. They are acquired in the processed state. Their value is higher than raw materials, but still at acquisition cost.
Work in progress is the stock part-way through manufacture that has not been finished. It is typically not completed yet, so it doesn't have full value. But the costs of processing already carried out makes it more valuable than materials and components.
Finished goods are completed and ready to be used or sold. Finished goods are the most expensive and need to be stored in good conditions.
Reference:
LO 2, AC 2.1

A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee (user) to pay the lessor (owner) for use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment is also leased. Since the lessee does not own the asset, it is not responsible for disposing the assets, and therefore, disposal costs are not attributable to the lessee. The lessee usually incurs rentals and operating costs. Finally, a company should treat the lease the same as other contracts, which they must qualify the supplier.
Reference:
LO 3, AC 3.1

JIT, often referred to as the Toyota production system (TPS), originated in Toyota's manufacturing plants in Japan in the early 1970s. It was first introduced by the organisation's owner, Taiichi Ohno. The prime goal of JIT is the achievement of zero inventories.
The just-in-time objectives of eliminating waste can be summarised in the 'five zeros: zero defects, zero set-up times, zero inventories, zero handling and zero lead times.
Reference:
LO 2, AC 2.3

In the scenario, one of the requirements for the new software is that the new one will interface with current system. Compatibility testing would be the most appropriate test here.
There are also other acceptance tests that are mentioned in L4M7 study guide:
- Health and safety test aims at establishing new health and safety routines, providing guidance notices and documentation and ensuring designed-in safety in operation.
- Stress testing (sometimes called torture testing) is a form of deliberately intense or thorough testing used to determine the stability of a given system, critical infrastructure or entity. It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results.
- A dry run (or a practice run) is a testing process where the effects of a possible failure are inten-tionally mitigated. For example, an aerospace company may conduct a "dry run" test of a jet's new pilot ejection seat while the jet is parked on the ground, rather than while it is in flight.
The usage of "dry run" in acceptance procedures (for example in the so-called FAT = factory ac-ceptance testing) is meant as following: the factory - which is a subcontractor - must perform a complete test of the system it has to deliver before the actual acceptance by customer.
Reference:
LO 3, AC 3.1

ABC analysis is an approach for classifying inventory items based on the items' consumption val-ues. Consumption value is the total value of an item consumed over a specified time period, for example a year. The approach is based on the Pareto principle to help manage what matters and is applied in this context:
- A items are goods where annual consumption value is the highest. Applying the Pareto principle (also referred to as the 80/20 rule where 80 percent of the output is determined by 20 percent of the input), they comprise a relatively small number of items but have a relatively high consumption value. So it's logical that analysis and control of this class is relatively intense, since there is the greatest potential to reduce costs or losses.
- B items are interclass items. Their consumption values are lower than A items but higher than C items. A key point of having this interclass group is to watch items close to A item and C item classes that would alter their stock management policies if they drift closer to class A or class C. Stock management is itself a cost. So there needs to be a balance between controls to protect the asset class and the value at risk of loss, or the cost of analysis and the potential value returned by reducing class costs. So, the scope of this class and the inventory management policies are determined by the estimated cost-benefit of class cost reduction, and loss control systems and processes.
- C items have the lowest consumption value. This class has a relatively high proportion of the total number of lines but with relatively low consumption values. Logically, it's not usually cost-effective to deploy tight inventory controls, as the value at risk of significant loss is relatively low and the cost of analysis would typically yield relatively low returns.
LO 2, AC 2.1