Production Management

Q. 3 Compare production planning and production control. State objectives and exam ple.

Ans.

Production planning and control are two important components of the production management process.
Planning includes the consideration of all input variables to achieve output goals can. Production control
m eans to remedial action to prevent the variation of actual output from the desired one

Production planning is a pre-production activityinvolves

that determ ination
of optim um production schedule,
sequence of operation, economic batch quantity and dispatching priorities.involve
It alsodetermination and
evaluation other inputs like manpower and money. Production control is com plementary activity to the
production planning which keeps track of the operations that are being performed.
Production planning
without production control is like a bank without a bank. Planning initiates action while control is
an adjusting process, providing corrective measures for planned development. Production
control regulates and stimulates the orderly how of materials in the manufacturing process from
the beginning to the end. The process ofproduction planning isdivided into following stages: a)Defining
objectives b) Setting priorities to attain the objectives. c) Analyzing the in ternal, external and environment d)
Determining attainable targets. e) Determining the inputs required for achieving the targets.

At its core, production planning represents the beating heart of any manufacturing process. Its
purpose is to minimise production time and costs, efficiently organise the use of resources and
maximise efficiency in the workplace. Production planning is the projected flow of production,
while production control is the systematic approach to control the flow of projected production
Production planning is a pre-production function aiming to match theproduction capacity to the estimated
market demand in a m ost feasible .manner. Forecast is importantin relation to pro duction planning.

Objectives of PPC
The main objective of production planning and controlis to producegoods and services of the right quality, in
the right quantity, at specified. time and at right price. Other objectives of production planning and control
include:
• Effectiveness: Ensures ht e production of right kindof goods to uf lfill thecustomer er quirem ents.
• Maxim ising output: Ensures the production of maximum goods and resources with minimum inputs.
• Quality control: Ensures that the quality of goods andservic es meet the quality specifications that
are set during the planning phase.
• Minim isingthroughput-time: Ensures that 'the time elaps
ed in the conversionprocess of the raw
material to finished goods is minimum by
educing
r delays,waiting time and idle tim e rel
ated to the
 production process.
• Capacity Utilisation: Ensures that the capacity. such as manpower and machine is fully utilised.
• Minim izing throughput
: Ensure s that minimum tim e isaken
t by a product to com plete its producti
on
cycle.
• Maintaining Inventory
. level: Ensures th
at optimum lev
el of stock in the ventory
in is maintained.

• Flexibility: Ensures that flexibility is m aint

ained in the production operations
.

• Better Coordination: Ensures that better coordination aintained

is m betw
e en machine and labour.

• Capacity planning: Ensures that prop

er planning for the futur
e requirements of the plant capacity is
made.

• Reducing bottlenecks: Ensures th at all the bottlenecks are removed from all the stages of
production. It also enables to solve the problems related to the production at early stage or
production.
• Minim ising cost: Ensures that the cost of producing goods or presenting a service is m inim um
• Maximizing profit: Ensures that organisation achieves maximum profit with minimum
cost.

• Preparing production schedules: Ensures that timely production is made according to the
schedule.

• Establishing routes and schedules: Ensures optimum utilisation of materials, labour and
equipments by preparing schedules for work.

• Maintaining the performance: Ensures that proper standards are maintained by comparing
the actual result with the planned result.

Example: Intermittent production like in furniture industry production planning is important..

Planning of each part for production is identified together with time needed in each operation with
set up times. if number of products are limited, a suitable Gantt chart is prepared for production
planning and control.
Master Production plan

Product A Product B
Monthly targets

Weekly Schedule

Daily Schedule
Q.1 What is meant by Quality Circles? Explain benefits of QC.
Quality Circles :
Quality circles are also commonly known as work improvement or quality teams, Generally, the
quality circle is a small group of employees who voluntarily meet at regular times to identify,
analyse and solve quality and other problems in their working environment. Quality circles can
recommend and implement improvement strategies and be a useful for the generation of new
ideas. Normally, members of a quality circle face and share similar problems in their daily work
lives and create a programme to tap human creative. The genesis of Quality Circle was in war
ravaged Japan in the l940's. Quality circles were first established in Japan in 1962.
The concept of Quality Circle is primarily based upon recognition of the value of the worker as a
human being, as someone who willingly activises on his job, his wisdom, intelligence,
experience.. It is based upon the human resource management considered as one of the key
factors in the improvement of product quality & productivity. Quality Circle concept has three
major attributes:
a. Quality Circle is a form of participation management.
b. Quality Circle is a human resource development technique.
c. Quality Circle is a problem solving technique.

Quality circles are not normally paid a share of the cost benefit of any improvements but usually
a proportion of the savings made is spent on improvements to the work environment.
There are different quality circle tools, namely:
• The Ishikawa or fishbone diagram - which shows hierarchies of causes contributing to
a problem
• The Pareto Chart - which analyses different causes by frequency to illustrate the vital
cause,
• Process Mapping, Data gathering tools such as check sheets and graphical tools such
as histograms, frequency diagrams, spot charts and pie charts
The structure of a Quality Circle consists of

a. A steering committee: This is at the top of the structure headed by a senior

executive
 b. Co-ordinator: A Personnel or Administrative officer who co-ordinates and
supervises
c. Facilitator: A senior supervisory officer.
d. Circle leader: From lowest level workers or supervisors.
e. Circle members : They may be staff workers.

Objectives of Quality Circles The objectives of Quality Circles are multi-faced.

a) Change in Attitude. : From "I don’t care" to "I do care"
b) Self Development : Bring out ‘Hidden Potential’ of people
c) Development of Team Spirit
d) Improved Organisational Culture
e) Positive working environment
f) Total involvement of people at all levels.
Benefits of Quality Circles:

Quality Circles solves work related problems coming in the way of achieving and sustaining
excellence leading to mutual upliftment of employees as well as the organisation. It is a way of
capturing the creative and innovative power that lies within the work force. There are hard and
soft benefits of QC:-

1. Quality circles can improve productivity, provide better solutions to problems, improve the
quality of working life.

2. They increase employee participation and encourage trust among members and
managers

3. They bring about a change in the attitude of employees by teaching additional skills to
employees and bringing out their latent potential.
4. They encourage a team culture and team environment;
5. They encourage the flow of new ideas
6. They · Improve customer relations and service delivery
7. They improve levels of communication
8. They Improve operational efficiency and create problem prevention attitudes
9. They develop a team spirit in the organization and reduce conflict between departments
10.They improve the motivation level of employees.
11.They providing employees with a conductive work environment.
12.Achievements through QC easily offset many financial costs

13.They foster a supportive environment which encourages workers to become involved

Quality Circles are not limited to manufacturing firms only. They are applicable for variety of
organisations where there is scope for group based solution of work related problems. Quality
Circles are relevant for factories, firms, schools, hospitals, universities, research institutes,
banks, government offices etc.

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Q 7. Define the term work measurement. What is importance and techniques of work
measurement?

Work Measurement : Work measurement is the process of establishing the time that a given
task would take when performed by a qualified worker working at a defined level of performance.
Work measurement is the application of techniques designed to establish the time for a qualified
worker to carry out specified jobs at a defined level of performance. Work measurement is
concerned with investigating, reducing and eliminating ineffective time, whatever may be the
cause. It is means of measuring the time taken in the performance of an operation or series of
operations in such a way that the ineffective time is shown up and can be separated out. Work
measurement is used to set standard times to carry out the work, so that any ineffective time is
not included later. In practice, proving existence of the ineffective time is the most difficult task.
After existence is proved, nature and extent is easy to see.

The basic procedure of work measurement consists of three stages ;

 Aanalysis phase in which the job is divided into convenient, discrete

components, commonly known as elements;
 Measurement phase in which the specific measurement technique is used to
establish the time required to complete each element of work
 Synthesis phase in which the various elemental times are added, together with
appropriate allowances
Importance of Work Measurement:
The purpose of work measurement is to reveal the nature and extent of ineffective time so that
action can be taken to eliminate it; and then, to set standards of performance that are attainable.
The importance of time lies in our everyday life. We need to know how long it should take to
walk to the train station in the morning. We need to schedule the day's work. In the business
world these standard times are needed for:
i. Panning the work of a workforce,
ii. Manning jobs, to decide how many workers it would need to complete certain jobs,
iii. Scheduling the tasks allocated to people
iv. Costing the work for estimating contract prices and costing the labour content in general
v. Calculating the efficiency or productivity of workers - and from this:
vi. Providing fair returns on possible incentive bonus payment schemes

Techniques for Work Measurement

The techniques used to measure work can be classified into those that rely on direct observation
of the work, and those that do not.
1. Rating : Rating is direct observation techniques. This involves the observer making an
assessment of the worker's rate of working relative to the observer's concept of the rate
corresponding to standard rating. This assessment is based on the factors involved in the
work - such as effort, dexterity, speed of movement, and consistency. The assessment is
made on a rating scale, of which there are three or four in common usage. Thus on the 0-
100 scale, the observer makes a judgment of the worker's rate of working as a percentage
of the standard rate of working (100).
2. Time study : A work measurement technique for recording the times and rates of
working for the elements of a specified job carried out under specified conditions,
Analyzing the data so as to obtain the time necessary for carrying out the job at a defined
level of performance
3. Activity Sampling : It is work measurement technique used to analyze the activities of
employees, machines, or business operations. Activity sampling requires random
observations of the amount of time spent on a given activity to be recorded over a fixed
period. The results are used to predict the total time spent on each activity and to
highlight areas in need of quality, efficiency, or effectiveness improvement. It is normally
used for collecting information on the percentages of time spent on activities. One of the
great advantages of this technique is that it enables lengthy activities or groups of
activities to be studied economically and in a way that produces statistically accurate
data.
4. Synthesis : Synthesis is a work measurement technique for building up the time for a job
at a defined level of performance by totaling element times obtained previously from time
studies on other jobs containing the elements concerned, or from synthetic data.
Synthetic data is the name given to tables and formulae derived from the analysis of
accumulated work measurement data.
5. Pre-determined motion time system: A predetermined motion time system a means of
establishing current labor rates within an industry by evaluating the amount of time required to
perform tasks associated with each job position. One advantage of a predetermined motion time
system is attention to each step in a task. For example, the use of a predetermined motion time
system may indicate that a clerical employee would perform data entry more efficiently if the
computer mouse were placed on the right hand of the work space rather than the left.
6. Estimating : The technique of estimating is the least refined of all those available to the work
measurement practitioner. It consists of an estimate of total job duration. It normally embraces
the total components of the job, including work content, preparation and disposal time, any
contingencies etc, all estimated in one gross amount.
7. Analytical Estimating : Analytical estimating is a structured work measurement technique in
which a task is analysed into its basic component operations or elements. Standard times are
applied to these elements. If standards times are not available, they are estimated based on
experience of the work under consideration. The estimating is carried out by a skilled and
experienced worker. Since the technique is normally used for assessing workloads over a
reasonably long planning period, errors in individual tasks will also cancel each other out.
8. Category estimation : It involves using statistics to develop a general idea of how long a
particular type of job will take.
9. Comparative estimation : It involves the creation of several different time-ranges for a certain
time of job, from which a qualified professional will choose the one that fits the best.
10. Work Sampling: Work sampling involves a qualified analyst observing a worker at random times,
and for random intervals. From these observations, the analyst discerns how much time the
worker puts into a specific task. This method is used to figure out how a worker divides time in
work that does not involve a lot of repetition

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Q.2 What do you mean by Materials Management? State the various elements of Materials
Management.

Ans.

Materials management refers to the location and movement of the physical items or products.
There are three main processes associated with materials management: spare parts, quality
control, and inventory management. Materials management is important in large manufacturing
and distribution environments, where there are multiple parts, locations, and significant money
invested in these items.

Materials management is planning and control of the functions supporting the complete flow of
materials and the associated flow of information. These functions include (1) identification, (2)
cataloging, (3) standardization, (4) need determination, (5) scheduling, (6) procurement, (7)
inspection, (8) quality control, (9) packaging, (10) storage, (11) inventory control, (12)
distribution, and (13) disposal.

Materials management and inventory control can help reduce manufacturing or production costs.
The materials management will result in the following advantages:
a. Better accountability.
b. Better coordination.
c. Better performance.

Materials management includes the following modules:-

1 Materials Planning

Sales forecasting and aggregate planning are the basic inputs for materials planning. The
different tasks under planning are:
a. Estimating the individual requirements of parts.
b. Preparing materials budget.
c. Forecasting the levels of inventories.
d. Scheduling the orders and
e. Monitoring the performance in relation to production and sales.

2 Inventory Control
This includes the following:
a. ABC analysis.
b. Fixing economical order quantity.
c. Lead time analysis.
d. Setting safety stock and reorder level.

3 Purchase Management
The tasks under purchasing are:
a. Evaluating and rating suppliers.
b. Selection of suppliers.
c. Finalization of terms of purchase.
d. Placement of purchase orders.
e. Follow-up.
f. Approval of payments to suppliers.

4 Stores Management
The different tasks under stores are:
a. Physical control of materials.
b. Preservation of stores.
c. Minimization of obsolescence and damage through handling.
d. Disposal and efficient handling.
e. Maintenance of stores records.
f. Proper location and stocking of materials.
g. Reconciling the materials with book figures.

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Q.10 Write short notes on any three

Q.10 (6) PERT Network

The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), is a model for project management
designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project. It is
commonly used in conjunction with the critical path method or CPM. PERT is a method to
analyze the involved tasks in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete
each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project. PERT was
developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects

PERT network diagram display information as:-:

1. The activity name

2. The normal duration time
3. The early start time (ES)
4. The early finish time (EF)
5. The late start time (LS)
6. The late finish time (LF)
 7. The slack

The advantages of PERT Charts is we are able to visually document complex projects and the
disadvantages is that PERT charts can be quite complicated.

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Q.10 (2) Operations Research

Operational Research is the use of advanced analytical techniques to improve decision making.
Operations research encompasses a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods
applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency. Operations research is defined
as a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions
regarding the operations under their control.

Need for Operational Research

Because it makes sense to make the best use of available resources. Today’s global markets
and instant communications mean that customers expect high-quality products and services
when they need them, where they need them. Organizations, whether public or private, need to
provide these products and services as effectively and efficiently as possible. This requires
careful planning and analysis. Good OR usually helps in modelling, analysis of options

Uses of Operational Research

• Scheduling: For example, scheduling of orders in a factory and of operating theatres in a

hospital.
• Facility planning: For example, computer simulations of airports for the rapid and safe
processing of travellers,
• Planning and forecasting: For example identifying possible future developments in
telecommunications
• Credit scoring: For example, deciding which customers offer the best prospects for
credit companies.
• Marketing: For example, evaluating the value of sale promotions, developing customer
profiles and computing the life-time value of a customer.
• Defence: For example, finding ways to deploy troops rapidly.
Some methods and techniques in Operational Research

• Computer simulation: Allowing to try out approaches and test ideas for improvement.
• Optimisation: Narrowing our choices to the very best
• Probability and statistics: Helping measure risk,
• Problem structuring: Helpful when complex decisions are needed in situations with
many stakeholders and competing interests.

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Q.10 (1) SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project. SWOT is used to evaluate the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to a project. It involves specifying the objective of the
project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to
achieving that objective. The strengths and weaknesses usually arise from within an
organisation, and the opportunities and threats from external sources. The SWOT analysis is an
important part of the project planning process:

A. Strengths: attributes of the organisation that help achieve the project objective.
B. Weaknesses: attributes of the organisation that stop achievement of the project
objective.
C. Opportunities: external conditions that help achieve the project objective.
D. Threats: external conditions that could damage the project.

Advantages of SWOT

a. Simple and only costs time to do.

b. Generates new ideas to help take advantage of an organisation's strengths and defends
against threats.
c. Awareness of political and environmental threats allows an organisation to have response
plans prepared.
Disadvantages of SWOT

a. May tend to persuade organisations to compile lists rather than think about what is
actually important in achieving objectives.
b. Presents lists uncritically and without clear prioritisation so that, for example, weak
opportunities may appear to balance strong threats.
c. Usually a simple list and not critically presented.

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