Human Resource Knowledge

Scope of production, planning and control

Production planning and control encompasses the following areas:

Materials

Planning for procurement of raw materials, components and spare parts in the right quantities and specifications at the right time, from the right source and at the right price .Purchasing, storage, inventory control, standardization, variety reduction, value analysis and inspection are the other activities associated with materials.

Methods

Choosing the best method of processing from several alternatives .It also includes determining the best sequence of operations (process plans) and planning for tooling, jigs and fixtures etc.

Machines and equipments

Manufacturing methods are related to production facilities available in the production system. It involves facilities such as planning, capacity planning, allocation and utilization of plant and equipments, machines etc.

It also involves equipment replacement policy, maintenance policy and maintenance schedules, tools manufacture and maintenance of tools etc.

Manpower

Planning for manpower (labor, supervisory and managerial levels) having appropriate skills and expertise.

Routing

Determining the flow of work, material handling in the plant and sequence of operations or processing steps. This is related to considerations of appropriate shop layout and plant layout temporary storage locations for raw materials, components and semi-finished goods and of materials handling systems.

Estimating

Establishing operation times leading to fixation of performance standards both for workers and machines.

Loading and scheduling

Machine loading is allocation of jobs to machines in conjunction with routing and with due consideration for capacity of machines and priority for jobs in order to utilize the machines to the maximum possible extent.

Scheduling ensures that parts, sub-assemblies and finished products are completed as per the required delivery dates. It provides a time table of manufacturing activities .It ensures a balanced load on all work centers and ensures even flow of work through the manufacturing facilities.

Dispatching

This is concerned with the execution of the planning functions. It gives necessary authority to start a particular work which has already been planned under routing and scheduling functions. Dispatching is the release of orders and instructions for the starting of production in accordance with the route-sheets and schedule charts.

Expediting
Means chasing, follow –up progressing which is done after the dispatching function. It keeps a close liaison with scheduling in order to provide an efficient feed-back and prompt review of targets and schedules.

Inspection

This function is related to maintenance of quality in production and of evaluating the efficiency of the processes, methods and labor so that improvements can be made to achieve the quality standards set by product design.

Evaluating
The objective of evaluation is to improve performance. Performance of machines, processes and labor is evaluated to improve the same.

Cost Control

Manufacturing cost is controlled by wastage reduction, value analysis, inventory control and efficient utilization of all resources.

In short, production planning and control function are concerned with decision making regarding

1.What to produce
Product planning and development, including product design.

2.How to produce
Process planning, material planning, tool planning etc.

3.Where to produce
Facilities planning, capacity planning and sub-contracting planning.

4.When to produce
Production scheduling and machine loading.

5.Who will produce

Manpower planning.

6.How much to produce
Planning for quantity, economic batch size etc.

Labels: Marketing

posted by Paresh @ 9:58 PM