Standard Grade Business Management Unit 3.4

Flow Production

2006-11-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

Aka continuous production or mass production, flow production enables products to be created in a series of steps.

Large amounts of goods produced and is highly capital intensive (machinery, automation)
Cars are massed produced for a large market using flow production.

Advantages of Flow Production

Economies of scale
Automated production lines save time and money
Quality systems can be built into the production

Disadvantages of Flow Production

Standard product produced (opposite of customised)
High set-up costs of automated lines
Repetitive and boring work
Long production runs may produce more than is needed

Batch Production

2006-11-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

Batch production enables items to be created in bulk (‘a batch’)
General purpose equipment and methods are used to produce small quantities of items that will be made and sold for a limited time only. Commonly used in food production

Advantages of Batch Production

Allows flexible production
Stocks of part-finished goods can be held and completed later
Workers can specialise

Disadvantages of Batch Production
Production runs of small batches can be expensive to produce
If production runs are different there may be extra costs and time delays in setting up different equipment

Repetitive work for employees

Job Production

2006-11-14T14:56:00.000-08:00

Job Production concentrates on producing one product from start to finish. Once one product is complete, another can begin.

It is extremely labour intensive

Some examples:

Wedding dress
Painting
House extension

Advantages of Job Production:

Easy to organise production
Can customise orders
‘one-off’ orders can be accommodated
Workers involved in entire production process from start to finish

Disadvantages of Job Production:

Production costs likely to be high
Production time may be longer
Investment in machinery may be higher as specialist equipment may be needed

Total Quality Management

2006-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

The main principle of TQM is that every employee is motivated to think about their personal contribution to providing quality to customers.

Every employee has a responsibility to ensure that a quality product leaves the workplace.

TQM relies on Kaizen - which is Japanese for continuous improvement. It means that everyone strives to making the product and the process better.

Quality Circles are a group of 6-12 people meet to identify quality problems, consider solutions & recommend suitable outcomes to management.

Members drawn from factory floor but include engineers, quality inspectors & salesmen to offer different viewpoints. (Managers may or may not be included)

Why use Quality Circles?
No-one knows production problems better than the workers. It also gives workers the chance to display their knowledge and skill

Quality Assurance

2006-11-14T09:23:00.000-08:00

This process of quality control made the production workers aware of the standard which was required by the business.

Quality checks would be conducted at each stage of production.

The workers would operate as ateam to check and monitor the progress and accuracy of the production process.

Quality Assurance is based on prevention.

Quality Control

2006-11-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

This process was a traditional method of quality control, whereby inspectors were required to spot check the final products.

Whenever sub-standard products were found it was the duty of the inspector to remove the items and discard them. This proved to be an extremely costly exercise as it resulted in a high level of wastage.

At no point in the process were the production workers involved in determining what was the expected level of quality.