Customer service is at the heart of quality, of late, the perception as to what constitutes Quality has undergone a metamorphosis. Quality is regarding the performance of the product as per the commitment (written or unwritten) made by the producer to the consumer. It does indeed concern itself regarding the control of defectives in a manufacturing environment and or complaints in a service environment. However, the scope of quality as a concept has expanded... Read more

Planning and control are the two important components of the management process. Planning involves the consideration of all input variables to achieve defined output goals. Control involves the corrective actions taken when the actual output varies from the desired one by bringing the actual output in line with the planned output. Production planning, in particular would therefore consist mainly of the evaluation and determination of production-inputs such as labor (manpower), machinery and... Read more

For high volume, mass or continuous production a line layout is preferred. In this the equipments are laid out according to the sequence of operations that must be performed on the raw material to convert it into the finished product. The sequences of the equipments ad the sequence of the stages through which the raw material progress from the raw material stage to the finished product correspond to each other. Such a Line layout... Read more

While scheduling the job shop type of operations system in addition to deciding which job should go to which work center, it is also necessary to decide on the sequence in which the jobs are to be processed in any work center. This relative prioritization determines the actual time schedule of the individual jobs. The priorities can be decided based upon or a number of criteria. What these criteria can be, and their relative... Read more

The first step of project management is project identification and appraisal which is also often called project feasibility analysis. This comprises the following elements: (1) Generalization of project ideas (2) Screening of the generated ideas (3) Detailed evaluation of the screened projects ideas. This first step, besides providing an inventory of ideas also facilities the basic structuring process so that only the ‘right’ projects enter into further detailed analysis. The generation of project ideas... Read more

The above difficulty can now be alleviated due to the availability of computer software packages such as the Computerized Relative Allocation of Facilities Techniques (CRAFT). The basic technique of optimization in CRAFT is similar to what we did visually: exchanges of positions between different departments. The computer program, therefore, requires input data such as: 1. Load Summary 2. The existing layout and the distances different locations, 3. The floor area requirements... Read more

The problems of “Flow” in a Process layout: The flexibility of the small batch manufacture using a process layout is limited to the variety of the items produced. The flexibility is not with regard to time. In process layout, equipments performing similar operations are placed together in an area of the shop floor. Lathes may be in one area while the milling machines may be in another and the grinding machines in yet... Read more

This essentially involves the following steps: (1) Analysis of technical feasibility (2) Measurement of cost (3) Measurement of benefits (4) Comparison of the benefit costs Technical feasibility is a broad level exercise, to start with, to determine what kind of technology would be needed for the different earlier screened project-ideas. The questions could be for example: Is there enough water to construct a dam and a power station? What... Read more

Product Layout: Possible Advantages: (1) Low total flow time of the product from the input stage to the output stage (i.e. higher rates of output) due to: (a) Continuous flow without intermediate stoppages and storages; (b) Repetitive, small, fragmented jobs learnt to perfection by the concerned workers; and (c) Minimum set-up times of machines. (2) Production planning and control is simple; less paper work (3) Inspection required is less (4) Lower degrees of skills... Read more

Cellular manufacturing also known as Group Technology is an approach whereby production can be done in small batches while taking advantages of the flow characteristics of the product or line layout. Components that may appear to be dissimilar but which require similar manufacturing processes and/or similar setups of the machine are grouped together and go through a particular group of such machines which may be dissimilar. Thus, instead of functional work centers we have... Read more