Production Case

Production

Production is the process of transforming inputs (raw materials, semifinished goods or subbassemblies) into a finished good. The main funtion of production in logistics is using the available capacity to produce the products for your customers. Production is not only making the goods required but also includes other activities suc as: organizational concepts, layout planning, production planning, and control. These activities are needed to be as efficient as possible, because at any given time machines and work stations should be working in their most efficient way to reduce the total cost of production. In the production process there are two main group resources: transforming processes and transformed procceses. the transforming resources are the machines, people, computers, etc.. that make the finished goods. The transformed resources are the raw materials that are transformed or made into the finished goods at the end of the production line.

Types of production processes

There are three main types of procution processes: job, batch and flow production.

Job production is when either one person or a team work together on a single item. they first finish one product an than start together on the next product. The product usually a unique product such as bulidings, they stat making the building and make it to the customers wishes.

Batch production is the production where a specific group or 'batch'is made at the same time. It is like the game we played during the logistics class where we first had to make one batch before we could start on the other batch. Batches are continually processed through each machine before moving to the next.

Flow production differs from batch production in a way that with batch production you have resting periods between the different machines and work stations. If you would take away the resting period between these stages you would get flow production, therefore it is a continous process with products flowing from one stage to another.

Theory of constraints

Every company would like to be as efficient as possible. Companies are always striving for econmies of scale in their production. In practice economies of scale is almost impossible to achieve, because you always have a constraint or 'bottleneck'in your production process. By applying the theory of constraints you can reduce or even take away the bottlenecks this will increase your efficiency. We saw during the logistics class with the lego game that having a constraint in your production process really lowers your efficiency and increase cost to a company (in the form of inventory carrying costs). There are five steps in removing constraints in a company. step 1: the constraint is first identified, you have to know where the constraint actually is. Step