It is the process of planning and subsequently controlling all aspects of manufacturing and production including ordering material, scheduling employees and work on the machines, and even distributing goods to end customers.
It is a necessary function for any organization seeking to maintain competitive advantage in the market. These strategies allow manufacturers to effectively generate a production plan, execute it, and ultimately take control of their operations through continuous improvement initiatives.
Key Functions
- Materials Management - Accurately determining the amount of material you will need is essential to eliminate waste, high inventory levels, and other inventory carrying costs. It also prevents the risk of stock-outs and running out of materials.
- Machines and Equipment Management - This includes analyzing equipment downtime to identify any bottlenecks and inefficiencies within the production process to ensure that production flows smoothly, efficiently, and on time. It also looks at equipment maintenance schedules to prevent any unexpected breakdowns that could stop production for extended periods of time.
- Methods Management - This involves the analysis of possible alternatives to production processes as well as various schedules that production can follow allowing manufacturers to choose the best one for their production operations and constraints.
- Routing or Process Planning - Eliminating useless steps or excessive motion through the shop floor are the main objective of this component.
- Estimating - This function is carried out using extensive analysis of operations along with methods and routing and standard times for operation are established using work measurement techniques.
- Loading and Scheduling - This is concerned with preparation of machine loads and fixation of Starting and completion dates for each of the operations.
- Dispatching - It involves the release of materials, components, and tools to the machine operators so that production can begin.
- Expediating or Follow-up - It involves the follow up of materials, work in progress, and assembly, manufacturers should identify bottlenecks and work to remedy them to ensure that the production plan is executed as planned.
- Inspection - It is a measure control tool that forms the basis for knowing the limitations with respects to methods, processes etc. which is very much useful for evaluation phase.
- Evaluation - This portion helps identify areas where productivity is still lacking and where improvements could be made
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