Reading Comprehension
试题详情
文章：
| Line | Manufacturers have to do more than build large |
| manufacturing plants to realize economies of scale. | |
| It is true that as the capacity of a manufacturing | |
| operation rises, costs per unit of output fall as plant | |
| (5) | size approaches “minimum efficient scale,” where the |
| cost per unit of output reaches a minimum, | |
| determined roughly by the state of existing technology | |
| and size of the potential market. However, minimum | |
| efficient scale cannot be fully realized unless a steady | |
| (10) | “throughput” (the flow of materials through a plant) is |
| attained. The throughput needed to maintain the | |
| optimal scale of production requires careful | |
| coordination not only of the flow of goods through the | |
| production process, but also of the flow of input from | |
| (15) | suppliers and the flow of output to wholesalers and |
| final consumers. If throughput falls below a critical | |
| point, unit costs rise sharply and profits disappear. A | |
| manufacturer’s fixed costs and “sunk costs” (original | |
| capital investment in the physical plant) do not | |
| (20) | decrease when production declines due to inadequate |
| supplies of raw materials, problems on the factory | |
| floor, or inefficient sales networks. Consequently, | |
| potential economies of scale are based on the | |
| physical and engineering characteristics of the | |
| (25) | production facilities—that is, on tangible capital—but |
| realized economies of scale are operational and | |
| organizational, and depend on knowledge, skills, | |
| experience, and teamwork—that is, on organized | |
| human capabilities, or intangible capital. | |
| (30) | The importance of investing in intangible capital |
| becomes obvious when one looks at what happens in | |
| new capital-intensive manufacturing industries. Such | |
| industries are quickly dominated, not by the first firms | |
| to acquire technologically sophisticated plants of | |
| (35) | theoretically optimal size, but rather by the first to |
| exploit the full potential of such plants. Once some | |
| firms achieve this, a market becomes extremely hard | |
| to enter. Challengers must construct comparable | |
| plants and do so after the first movers have already | |
| (40) | worked out problems with suppliers or with new |
| production processes. Challengers must create | |
| distribution networks and marketing systems in | |
| markets where first movers have all the contacts and | |
| know-how. And challengers must recruit management | |
| (45) | teams to compete with those that have already |
| mastered these functional and strategic activities. |
题目：
The passage LEAST supports the inference that a manufacturer’s throughput could be adversely affected by
选项:
A、a mistake in judgment regarding the selection of a wholesaler
B、a breakdown in the factory’s machinery
C、a labor dispute on the factory floor
D、an increase in the cost per unit of output
E、a drop in the efficiency of the sales network
答案:
D
