operations - production processes Flashcards
What is production?
The process of taking raw materials and turning them into a finished product.
What are the two methods of production?
Job and flow production.
What is job production?
The production of one off items to meet the needs of each individual customer.
Give 2 advantages of job production.
- Cheap and easy to set up
- Meet specific needs of customer
- High quality
- Can charge premium price
- Business can differentiate itself from competitors
Give 2 disadvantages of job production.
- Requires highly skilled labour
- Difficult to achieve economies of scale
- Time consuming
- Expensive
- Limited market and output
Give an example of a product made using job production.
- Tailor made clothes
- Building ships and bridges
- Web design
- Specialist cakes
What is flow production?
The process of making identical products along an assembly line.
Give 2 advantages of flow production.
- Efficient
- Low cost per unit (economies of scale)
- Consistent quality
- Continual output so less need to hold stock
- Can utilise worker specialisation
Give 2 disadvantages of flow production.
- High inital costs
- Problems can shut down whole process
- Repetitive work leading to low motivation
- Can only be used for standardised products
Give an example of a product made using flow production.
- Mass produced food
- Televisions
- Mobile phones
What is lean production?
A strategy businesses can use to mak production more efficient.
How does using lean production contribute to business efficiency?
It aims to use as few resources as possible to minimise waste.
What 2 techniques can be used to increase business efficiency as part of lean production?
JIT and Kaizen.
What does JIT stand for?
Just in time.
What is the aim of JIT?
To keep stock levels to the bare minimum.
Give 2 advantages of JIT.
- Money saved from not holding stock can be used elsewhere
- Stock will not lose value
- Reduces warehousing costs
Give 2 disadvantages of JIT.
- Dependent upon a good relationship with suppliers
- Firm can lose out on sales if stock doesn’t arrive
- Don’t get purchasing economies of scale
- Cannot meet unexpected rises in demand
What is the aim of Kaizen?
For all workers to make small but frequent improvements to increase efficiency.
Give an advantage of Kaizen.
- Big cost saving over time
* Easy to implement
