BUSI 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Job Shop, Operations Management, Product Design
12 Apr 2018
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Document Summary
In a production setting, variability is detrimental to quality and to meeting schedules. Technology is expensive; usually it requires high volumes of output to offset high initial cost. Less flexible that human labour: once a process has been automated it is hard to change. Moreover, workers sometimes fear automation because they may lose their jobs. This can have an adverse effect on morale and productivity. Product-process matrix: the ideal is to have production process capabilities such as equipment flexibility match product requirements such as product variety and quantity (volume). This relationship is also displayed as the shaded main diagonal of the product-process matrix: failure to match product and production process can result in inefficiencies and higher costs than are necessary, perhaps creating a competitive disadvantage. For example, using a batch process when there is only one product made on the process is inefficient. The process does not use the automated material movement of assembly or continuous processes.
