Introduction-

The primary responsibility of an Operations Manager working at any level, for production or service based organization, is to help and facilitate the building of walls. It’s a demanding job but at the time takes the same amount of time required by people who are creating hurdles and end up building walls instead of bridges. Also, it is important at this point in time to understand that the Strength of the Chain is equal to the strength of the weakest Link, so if your analysis, as an operations manager consists of both Engineering and Management Links. Any weakness of analysis in Engineering or Management Link would lead to an overall weak analysis. A balanced approach would be to make best use of the strength and overcome the weaknesses. As a rule of thumb, problem solving and decision making through Production and Operations Management would entail that both Engineering and Management aspects.

1.1 Production and Operation Management

1.2 Scope of Production and Operation Management

1.3 Evolution of Production Function

1.4 TYPES OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM

1.4.1 MASS PRODUCTION

1.4.2 Batch production

1.4.3 Job production

1 . 4 . 4 F l o w P r o d u c t i o n

1.4.5 Cell Production

S u m m a r y

R e f e r e n c e s

1.1 Production and Operation Management

Operations management is often used along with production management in literature on the

subject. It is therefore, useful to understand the nature of operations management .Operations

management is understood as the process whereby resources or inputs are converted into more

useful products .A second reading of the sentence reveals that, there is hardly any difference

between the terms production management and operations management .But, there are a least

two points of distinction between production management and operations management .First, the

term production management is more used for a system where tangible goods are

produced .Whereas ,operations management is more frequently used where various inputs are

transformed into tangible services .Viewed from this perspective, operations management will

cover such services organization as banks ,airlines ,utilities ,pollution control agencies super

bazaars, educational institutions ,libraries ,consultancy firm and police departments, in

addition ,of course ,to manufacturing enterprises. The second distinction relates to the evolution

of the subject. Operation management is the term that is used now a days .Production

management precedes operations management in the historical growth of the subject

The two distinctions not withstanding, the terms production management and operations

management are used interchargeably .

1.2 Scope of Production and Operation Management

The scope of production and operations management is indeed vast .Commencing with the

selection of location production management covers such activities as acquisition of land,

constructing building ,procuring and installing machinery ,purchasing and storing raw material

and converting them into saleable products. Added to the above are other related topics such as

quality management ,maintenance management ,production planning and control, methods

improvement and work simplification and other related areas.

1. Facility Location - Selecting appropriate location for the production

2. Plant layouts and material handling - Deciding upon the machines, equipment and

necessary devices which could lead to effectual and desired production in the most

economic way. Preparation of plan layout for the establishment of machines in the

required sequence. Storage of material and handling it in most effective way to avoid

the wastage and delivery at the work centers as and when required.

3. Product design - Designing the product and conceive the idea about its production.

4. Process design - Determination of the production process which is most relevant and

efficient in the given state of affairs.

5. Production and planning control - Planning the production and its various aspects how,

when and where producing a particular product or its assembly will be done. 

6. Quality control - Controlling the production and ensuring the quality by setting the

check points and taking the periodic measurements of the current performance.

7. Materials management - Managing the inventories of raw material, semi-finished and

finished goods in a way that neither excessive money may block in this non-productive

operation nor the required material.

8. Maintenance management - Analysis the deviations and formulating the corrective

measures to stay in track with planned quality, time-schedule and predetermined cost

schedules.

.

1.3 Evolution of Production Function

In order to trace the evolution of production function, we identify six historical

developments :the Industrial Revolution ,scientific management , the human relations

movement ,operations research, computers and advanced production technology and the service

revolution A brief explanation of each stage follows.

Since times ancient production systems were used in oe form or another. The Egyptian Pyramids,

the Greek Parthenon, the Great Wall o0f China and the aquaducts and the roads of the Roman

Empire , dams and anicuts built by the Chola kings attest to the ingenuity and industry of the

people of ancient times But the ways the people in the ancient days produced goods were

different from the production methods of today. Production systems prior to the 1700s are often

referred to as the cottage system, because the production of goods took place in homes or

cottages ,where craftsman directed apprentices in performing hand work on, products.

From 1770 to the early 1800s series of events took p[lace in England which together are called

the Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution resulted in two major developments: widespread

substitution of machine power for human power and establishment of the factory system.

The events that took p[lace from 1770 to the 1800s are characterized by great inventions. The

great inventions were eight in number ,with six of them having been conceived in England, one

in France and one in the United States .The eight inventions are—Hargreaves Spinning Jenny,

Arkwright’s Water Frame, Crompton’s Mule, Cartwright’s Power Loom, Watt’s steamengine,

Berthollet’s Chlorine Bleaching Discovery.Mandslay’s Screw-Cutting Lathe and Eli Whitney’s

Interchangeable Manufacture.

As observed from eight inventions ,most of them have to do with the spinning of yarn and

weaving of cloth .This is logical from the point o view that cloth was the principal export

commodity of England at that time and was in short supply owi8ng to the considerable

expansion of England’s colonial empire and its commercial trade.

The availability of machine power greatly facilitated the gathering of workers in factories that

housed the machines .The large number of workers congregated in the factories ,created the need

for organizing them in logical ways to produce goods. The publication of Adam Smith’s The

Wealth of Nations in 1776 advocated the benefits of the division of labor or specialization of

labor ,which broke production of goods into small specialized tasks that were assigned to

workers on production lines.

Thus, the factories of late 1700s not only had developed production machinery ,but also ways of

planning and controlling the output of workers

The impact of the Industrial Revolution was first felt in England .From here, it spread to other

European countries and to the United states.

The Industrial Revolution advanced further with the development of the gasoline engine and

electricity in the 1800s.Other industries emerged and along with them new factories came into

being.By the middle of 1800s. the old cottage system of production had been laced by the factory

system .As days went by, production capacities expanded ,demand for capital grew and labor

became highly dependant on jobs and urdanised. At the commencement of the 20 th century ,the

one element that was missing was a management –the ability to develop and use the existing

facilities to produce on a large scale to meet massive markets of today.

1.4 TYPES OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM

M e t h o d s o f p r o d u c t i o n

Production is at the heart of all industry and is the process of using the resources of a firm to

convert ‘inputs’ into ‘outputs’, which are products or services desired by customers.

1.4.1 MASS PRODUCTION

Mass Production involves making many copies of products, very quickly, using assembly line

techniques to send partially complete products to workers who each work on an individual step,

rather than having a worker work on a whole product from start to finish.

Mass production of fluid matter typically involves pipes with centrifugal pumps or screw

conveyors (augers) to transfer raw materials or partially complete product between vessels. Fluid

flow processes such as oil refining and bulk materials such as wood chips and pulp are

automated using a system of process control which uses various instruments to measure variables

such as temperature, pressure, volumetric and level, providing feedback to a controller that holds

a set-point.

Bulk materials such as coal, ores, grains and wood chips are handled by belt, chain, slat,

pneumatic or screw conveyors, bucket elevators and mobile equipment such as front-end loaders.

Materials on pallets are handled with forklifts. Also used for handling heavy items like reels of

paper, steel or machinery are electric overhead cranes, sometimes called bridge cranes because

they span large factory bays.

Mass production is capital intensive and energy intensive, as it uses a high proportion of

machinery and energy in relation to workers. It is also usually automated while total expenditure

per unit of product is decreased. However, the machinery that is needed to set up a mass

production line (such as robots and machine presses) is so expensive that there must be some

assurance that the product is to be successful to attain profits.

One of the descriptions of mass production is that "the skill is built into the tool", which means

that the worker using the tool need not have the skill. For example, in the 19th or early 20th

century, this could be expressed as "the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself" (not the

training of the worker). Rather than having a skilled worker measure every dimension of each

part of the product against the plans or the other parts as it is being formed, there were jigs ready

at hand to ensure that the part was made to fit this set-up. It had already been checked that the

finished part would be to specifications to fit all the other finished parts—and it would be made

more quickly, with no time spent on finishing the parts to fit one another. Later, once

computerized control came about (for example, CNC), jigs were obviated, but it remained true

that the skill (or knowledge) was built into the tool (or process, or documentation) rather than

residing in the worker's head. This is the specialized capital required for mass production; each

workbench and set of tools (or each CNC cell, or each fractionating column) is different (fine-

tuned to its task).

History-Before the Machine Age

Crossbows made of bronze were mass produced in China during the Warring States Period. The

Qin Emperor unified China at least in part by equipping large armies with these weapons, which

were equipped with a sophisticated trigger mechanism made of interchangeable parts. [2] Ships of

war were mass produced at a moderate cost by the Carthaginians in their excellent harbors,

allowing them to efficiently maintain their control of the Mediterranean. Venice themselves also

mass produced ships using prefabricated parts and assembly lines many centuries later. The

Venetian Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day, in what was effectively the

world's first factory which, at its height, employed 16,000 people. Mass production in the

publishing industry has been commonplace since the Gutenberg Bible was published using a

printing press in the mid-15th century.

In the Industrial Revolution simple mass production techniques were used at the Portsmouth

Block Mills to make ships' pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. These

were also used to make clocks and watches, and to make small arms. Though produced on a very

small scale, Crimean War gunboat engines designed and assembled by John Penn of Greenwich

are recorded as the first instance of the application of mass production techniques (though not

necessarily the assembly-line method) to marine engineering.[3] In filling an Admiralty order for

90 sets to his high-pressure and high-revolution horizontal trunk engine design, Penn produced

them all in 90 days. He also used Whitworth Standard threads throughout.

During and since the Machine Age

Prerequisites of a world filled with mass production were interchangeable parts, machine tools

and power, especially in the form of electricity.

Some of the organizational management concepts needed to create 20th-century mass

production, such as scientific management, had been pioneered by other engineers (most of

whom are not famous, but Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the well-known ones), whose

work would later be synthesized into fields such as industrial engineering, manufacturing

engineering, operations research, and management consultancy. Henry Ford downplayed the role

of Taylorism in the development of mass production at his company. However, Ford

management performed time studies and experiments to mechanize their factory processes,

focusing on minimizing worker movements. The difference is that while Taylor focused mostly

on efficiency of the worker, Ford also substituted for labor by using machines, thoughtfully

arranged, wherever possible.

The United States Department of War sponsored the development of interchangeable parts for

guns produced at the arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts and Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now

West Virginia) in the early decades of the 19th century, finally achieving reliable

interchangeability by about 1850. This period coincided with the development of machine tools,

with the armories designing and building many of their own. Some of the methods employed

were a system of gauges for checking dimensions of the various parts and jigs and fixtures for

guiding the machine tools and properly holding and aligning the work pieces. This system came

to be known as armory practice or the American system of manufacturing, which spread

throughout New England aided by skilled mechanics from the armories who were instrumental

in transferring the technology to the sewing machines manufacturers and other industries such as

machine tools, harvesting machines and bicycles. Singer Manufacturing Co., at one time the

largest sewing machine manufacturer, did not achieve interchangeable parts until the late 1880s,

around the same time Cyrus McCormick adopted modern manufacturing practices in making

harvesting machines.

Mass production benefited from the development of materials such as inexpensive steel, high

strength steel and plastics. Machining of metals was greatly enhanced with high speed steel and

later very hard materials such as tungsten carbide for cutting edges. Fabrication using steel

components was aided by the development of electric welding and stamped steel parts, both

which appeared in industry in about 1890. Plastics such as polyethylene, polystyrene and

polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can be easily formed into shapes by extrusion, blow molding or

injection molding, resulting in very low cost manufacture of consumer products, plastic piping,

containers and parts.

A very influential article that helped to frame the 20th century's definition of mass production

appeared in a 1926 Encyclopædia Britannica supplement. It was written based on

correspondence with Ford Motor Company.

Factory electrification

Electrification of factories began very gradually in the 1890s after the introduction of a practical

DC motor by Frank J. Sprague and accelerated after the AC motor was developed by Nikola

Tesla (Westinghouse) and others. Electrification of factories was fastest between 1900 and 1930,

aided by the establishment of electric utilities with central stations and the lowering of electricity

prices from 1914 to 1917.

Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central

station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because line shafts and belts

had high friction losses. Electric motors allowed also more flexibility in manufacturing and

required less maintenance than line shafts and belts. Many factories saw a 30% increase in output

just from changing over to electric motors.

Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison’s iron ore processing

plant (about 1893) that could process 20,000 tons of ore per day with two shifts of five men each.

At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small

narrow gauge rail cars, and for comparison, a canal digger in previous decades typically handled

5 tons per 12 hour day.

The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the

Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, which electrified its mason jar plant in Muncie,

Indiana, USA around 1900. The new automated process used glass blowing machines to replace

210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck was used to handle 150 dozen

bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry 6 dozen. Electric mixers replaced

men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An

electric overhead crane replaced 36 day laborers for moving heavy loads across the factory.

According to Henry Ford:

”The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from

the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with

its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern

industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The

motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has

probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of

useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful –

so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft

was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible

under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds.

Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be

nothing of what we call modern industry.”

Mass production was popularized in the 1910s and 1920s by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company,

which introduced electric motors to the then-well-known technique of chain or sequential

production. Ford also bought or designed and built special purpose machine tools and fixtures

such as multiple spindle drill presses that could drill every hole on one side of an engine block in

one operation and a multiple head milling machine that could simultaneously machine 15 engine

blocks held on a single fixture. All of these machine tools were arranged systematically in the

production flow and some had special carriages for rolling heavy items into machining position.

Production of the Ford Model T used 32,000 machine tools.

All processes in the factory were capable of turning out high precision work within tolerances.

Ford's contribution to mass production was synthetic in nature, collating and improving upon

existing methods of sequential production and applying electric power to them, resulting in

extremely-high-throughput, continuous-flow mass production, making the Model T affordable

and, as such, an instant success.

Although the Ford Motor Company brought mass production to new heights, it was a synthesizer

and extrapolator of ideas rather than being the first creator of mass production. The following

paragraphs touch on precursors from prior eras.

Use of assembly lines

Mass production systems for items made of numerous parts are usually organized into assembly

lines. The assemblies pass by on a conveyor, or if they are heavy, hung from an overhead crane

or monorail.

In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary

assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to a backbone "main" assembly

line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a

single line.

Vertical integration

Vertical integration is a business practice that involves gaining complete control over a product's

production, from raw materials to final assembly.

In the age of mass production, this caused shipping and trade problems in that shipping systems

were unable to transport huge volumes of finished automobiles (in Henry Ford's case) without

causing damage, and also government policies imposed trade barriers on finished units.

Ford built the Ford River Rouge Complex with the idea of making the company's own iron and

steel in the same factory as parts and car assembly took place. River Rouge also generated its

own electricity.

Upstream vertical integration, such as to raw materials, is away from leading technology toward

mature, low return industries. Most companies chose to focus on their core business rather than

vertical integration. This included buying parts from outside suppliers, who could often produce

them as cheaply or cheaper.

Standard Oil, the major oil company in the 19th century, was vertically integrated partly because

there was no demand for unrefined crude oil, but kerosene and some other products were in great

demand. The other reason was that Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry. The major oil

companies were, and many still are, vertically integrated, from production to refining and with

their own retail stations, although some sold off their retail operations. Some oil companies also

have chemical divisions.

Lumber and paper companies at one time owned most of their timber lands and sold some

finished products such as corrugated boxes. The tendency has been to divest of timber lands to

raise cash and to avoid property taxes.

Today the trend is toward platform companies, where the value added is in market analysis,

engineering and product design. The platform company contracts production to outside suppliers,

often in low wage countries.

Ford pioneered the concept of assembly line used for mass production. Mass production is

wrongly equated with heavy production meant for teeming millions. However, mass production

is a concept. It believes in break-up of a task into its simplest possible elements. These elements

are then grouped as per production norms. Assembly line consists of work stations in sequence.

At each work station, a carefully designed portion of work is done (in a soft drink plant, for

examples, filling of bottles). In this system, similar parts on assembly line are interchangeable

and replaceable. This enables a production of a large quantity and maintenance too of large

quantities.

On assembly line, the material moves continuously at a uniform average rate. It reaches the

various work stations, where a portion of work is done. To illustrate, we have products like

Automobile assembly, TV assembly, computers assembly, toys assembly etc.

Assembly line operations of materials can be manual or can be conveyor belts carrying the part

at pre-decided speed so that there is sufficient time at each Work Station to perform the allotted

task. The conveyor belts are of belt type, chain type, overhead type, pneumatic type or screw

type. Assembly lines on one hand can be 100% manual or on the other hand 100% automatic,

with many different semi-automatic possibilities between these two extremes. The same

principle however is at work in an automatic or non-automatic or semi-automatic process,

changing only the labor content of the task.

Mass Production: Suitability

Mass production refers to a large quantity of production with standardized products having less

variety. Ideally, it should be a single standard product (no changes in design) manufactured on a

continuous basis over a period of time. So the determining factor is the demand which makes us

opt either for continuous or batch type production .If there is a larger demand than the production

rate, mass production can be sustained. But with a rate of demand lesser than the rate of

production, batch production is called for. It gives us an inventory build-up.

Besides this, the economics of the assembly line must be attended to. When annual requirements

are comparatively small, it is better to buy from outside. When they are moderate, it is better to

produce on individual stations. For a higher demand, an assembly line is justified.

Characteristics of a Mass Production System

Merits:

1. There is a smooth flow of material (from one Work Station to another Work Station

which is straight line, or L-type or U-type, or circular or S-type.

2. There are small WIP (work-in-process) inventories because output of one becomes input

of the other process.

3. Production time/unit as a whole is short.

4. Closely spaced Work Stations reduce material handling.

5. No expertise is necessary to operate the system. Less training costs.

6. PPC (production planning and control) is simple.

7. Less storage space for temporary storage and WIP.

Demerits:

1. One machine failure results in a stoppage of the whole line following it. Maintenance is

therefore challenging.

2. Assembly lines are not flexible. Great changes in layout are necessary when product

design is charged.

3. Production speed is determined by the slowest machine. Line balancing is difficult.

4. It requires general rather than specific supervision.

5. Capital intensive owing to installation of special type of machines and their possible

duplication along the line.

1.4.2 Batch production is a technique used in manufacturing, in which the object in question is

created stage by stage over a series of workstations. With job production and flow production it

is one of the three main production methods.[1]

Batch production is common in bakeries and in the manufacture of sports shoes, pharmaceutical

ingredients, purifying water (APIs), inks, paints and adhesives. In the manufacture of inks and

paints, a technique called a colour-run is used. A colour-run is where one manufactures the

lightest colour first, such as light yellow followed by the next increasingly darker colour such as

orange, then red and so on until reaching black and then starts over again. This minimizes the

cleanup and reconfiguring of the machinery between each batch. White (by which is meant

opaque paint, not transparent ink) is the only colour that cannot be used in a colour-run because a

small amount of white pigment can adversely affect the medium colours. The chemical, tire, and

process industry (CPT) segment uses a combination of batch and process manufacturing

depending the product and plant.

Advantages and Disadvantages

There are several advantages of batch production; it can reduce initial capital outlay because a

single production line can be used to produce several products. As shown in the example, batch

production can be useful for small businesses who cannot afford to run continuous production

lines. If a retailer buys a batch of a product that does not sell, then the producer can cease

production without having to sustain huge losses. Batch production is also useful for a factory

that makes seasonal items, products for which it is difficult to forecast demand, a trial run for

production, or products that have a high profit margin.

Batch production also has some drawbacks. There are inefficiencies associated with batch

production as equipment must be stopped, re-configured, and its output tested before the next

batch can be produced. Idle time between batches is known as downtime. The time between

consecutive batches is known as cycle time. Cycle time variation is a Lean Manufacturing

metric.

Continuous production is used for products that are made in a similar manner. For example, a

certain car model has the same body shape and therefore, many of the same model cars can be

made at the same time without stop, decreasing manufacturing cost.

1.4.3 Job production, sometimes called jobbing or one-off production, involves producing

custom work, such as a one-off product for a specific customer or a small batch of work in

quantities usually less than those of mass-market products. It is the oldest form of production.

Individual products are made, with probably not a lot of standardized parts in it. With batch

production and flow production it is one of the three main production methods.[1][2]

Job production is most often associated with classical craft production, small firms (making

railings for a specific house, building/repairing a computer for a specific customer, making

flower arrangements for a specific wedding etc.) but large firms use job production too.

Examples include:

Designing and implementing an advertising campaign

Auditing the accounts of a large public limited company

Building a new factory

Installing machinery in a factory

Machining a batch of parts per a CAD drawing supplied by a customer

Building the Golden Gate bridge

Fabrication shops and machine shops whose work is primarily of the job production type are

often called job shops. The associated people or corporations are sometimes called jobbers.

Job production is, in essence, manufacturing on a contract basis, and thus it forms a subset of the

larger field of contract manufacturing. But the latter field also includes, in addition to jobbing, a

higher level of outsourcing in which a product-line-owning company entrusts its entire

production to a contractor, rather than just outsourcing parts of it.

Benefits and disadvantages

Key benefits of job production include:

can provide emergency parts or services, such as quickly making a machine part that

would take a long time to acquire otherwise

can provide parts or services for machinery or systems that are otherwise not available, as

when the original supplier no longer supports the product or goes out of business

(orphaned)

work is generally of a high quality

a high level of customisation is possible to meet the customer's exact requirements

significant flexibility is possible, especially when compared to mass production

workers can be easily motivated due to the skilled nature of the work they are performing

Disadvantages include:

higher cost of production

re-engineering: sometimes engineering drawings or an engineering assessment, including

calculations or specifications, needs to be made before the work can be done

requires the use of specialist labour (compare with the repetitive, low-skilled jobs in mass

production)

slow compared to other methods (batch production and mass production)

Essential features

There are a number of features that should be implemented in a job production environment, they

include:

Clear definitions of objectives should be set.

Clearly outlined decision making process.

1 . 4 . 4 F l o w p r o d u c t i o n

This is a production line method, where product is continuously produced, flowing from one

stage of production to the next. Workers and, increasingly robots, carry out individual repetitive

tasks aiming to work as quickly as possible without loss of quality. This is the method pioneered

by Henry Ford for his Model T car, and the efficiencies he gained enabled him to produce large

numbers of cars at low cost. Any product made in high volumes will almost certainly be made on

a flow production line.

This approach to production has close links with FW Taylor and his ‘Scientific school of

management’ – Taylor’s motivational theories were all about creating the workplace and forms

of reward to maximise efficiency. This in turn led to very boring work and contributed to

industrial unrest over the years where workers’ interests were overlooked.

More modern, lean production techniques have at least partly recognised the fact that this type

of work can be extremely boring, and ideas such as cell production and quality circles can help

improve the workplace as workers become multi-skilled, take more responsibility for quality and

can contribute their ideas for improvements.

Flow production systems are typically capital intensive and it is important to keep them running

smoothly with high levels of capacity utilisation, so that these high overhead costs are spread

over as many units as possible.

Once set up properly, flow production lines can in some cases produce millions of consistently

high quality products.

1.4.5 Cell production

This is a form of flow production in which the line is separated into a number of sections, each

looked after by a group of workers called a ‘cell’. Cells take responsibility for work in their area,

such as quality, job rotation, training and so on. See notes on Lean Production for more detailed

discussion of Cell Production.

S u m m a r y -

The distinction between the different methods of production is sometimes not totally clear. With

some higher-value products made in flow production, such as motor vehicles, it is now possible

to personalize the product for each order.

Cars such as the new Mini are made to order, and customers specify colour, trim, and accessories

from an extensive list. This has been made possible through advances in computerised ordering

and manufacturing systems and through advances in the actual processes – such as robotised

paint spraying in the case of the Mini. This means that customers get a very personalised product

with all the cost benefits and consistent quality from flow production.

Questions-

1. Distinguish between Product, Service and Project.

2. Define Production Planning and Control and state the objective of production Planning and

control department.

3. What advantages are desired from efficient Production? Operations Management.

4. Briefly discuss the functions of Production Management.

5. Describe with the use of organization structure the importance of Production Management

function and its relationship with other departments in the organization.

6. Explain the steps in Planning Production in the case of Line Production and Job Production.

What are the specific problems in each one of the above and how can there be tackled.

Suggested Readings:

1. Admn, E. E. & Ebert, RJ. : Production and Operations Management, 6th ed., New Delhi,

Prentice Hall of India 1995.

2. Chary, S.N. : Production and Operations Management, New Delhi, Tata McGraw Hill,

2ndEdition.

3. Ashwathapa: Production and Operations Management, Himalaya Publishing House.

4. Dobler,Conald W and Lee, Lamar : Pruchasing and Materials Management, New

York,McGraw Hill, 1984.

5. Chunawalla & Patel : Production and Operations Management, Himalaya Publishing

House, Nair:Production and Operations Manageemnt, TMH