6.6.4
Characteristics
Material
Requirements
Control over
suppliers
Vertical Integration
Raw Materials
Finished goods
Quality control
responsibility
Production
information
requirements
Scheduling
Operations
challenges
Process flow
Typical size
Type of Equipment
Table 1: Important characteristics of production methods1
Job-Shop
1
Continuous
Flow
More
predictable
Predictable
Very predictable
Low
Moderate
High
Very high
None
Very little
Small
Moderate
None
Varies
Some backward
often forward
Varies, frequent
deliveries
High
Backward &
forward
Large, continuous
deliveries
Very high
Direct Labour
Varies
QC specialists
Process control
High
Varies
Moderate
Low
Uncertain,
frequent changes
Frequent
expending
Process design
around
schedule
Inflexible sequence
dictated by
technology
Increasing labour
and machine
utilisation, fast
response,
breaking
bottlenecks
Balancing
stages,
designing
procedures,
responding to
diverse needs
A few dominant
patterns
Moderate
Combination of
specialised &
general
purpose
Rebalancing
line, productivity
improvement,
adjusting
staffing levels
Avoiding down
time, timing
expansions, cost
minimisation
No pattern
Usually small
Rigid flow
pattern
Often large
Large
Specialised, high
tech
Clear expressed in
physical terms
Requires
synchronisation
Varies
Incremental
Varies
Shifting frequently
Shifting often
but predictable
Slow
Very short
Moderate
Moderate
Clear in terms
of output rates
Requires
rebalancing
Generally
known and
stationary
Fast
Long
Incremental
Often
incremental
Incremental or
radical
Edward A. Silver, David F. Pyke, Rein Peterson, (1998)
Clear & inflexible
Specialised, low
or high tech
Fuzzy, often
expresses in €
Bottlenecks
Speed (unit/day)
Run length
Process changes
required by new
products
Assembly
Line
Difficult to predict
General purpose
Definition of
Capacity
Capacity addition
Line
Flow/Batch
Known and
stationary
Very fast
Very long
Always radical
Characteristics
Number of
customers
Number of
products
Typical factory size
Level of
automation
Speed (Units/day)
Nature of
maintenance
Process changes
required by new
products
Marketing
characteristics
By-products
Need for
traceability
Capital versus
labour/material
intensive
Job-Shop
Line
Flow/Batch
Assembly
Line
Continuous
Flow
Many
Many but fewer
Less
Few
Many
Fewer
Fewer still
Few
Usually small
Moderate
Often large
Large
Low
Intermediate
Low or high
High
Slow
Moderate
As needed or
preventive
when idle
Fast
Very fast
As needed
Shutdown
Incremental or
radical
Always radical
As needed
Incremental
Often
incremental
Features of the
product
Quality and
features
Few
Few
Quality &
features or
availability/price
Few
Little
Intermediate
Little
High
Labour
Labour &
material
Material &
labour
Capital
Availability/price
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