PROJECT REPORT ON

Production Control

Production Control: The procedure of planning, routing, scheduling, dispatching, and expediting the flow of materials, parts, subassemblies, and assemblies within the plant from the start to the finished product in an orderly and efficient manner.

Coordinating the interaction of people, materials, and machinery so that products are made in the proper amounts at the required times to fill orders.

The control of resources such as manpower, money, machinery, production plants and materials throughout the complete production process.

Production Planning is the planning of the work Where as, Production Control is working of the plan.

Production Control involves dissemination of data preparation of reports regarding output, machine and labour efficiency, percentage defectives etc.

Production Control is seeing that the requirements are actually made available at the right place and in the right quantities.

Production Control involves actual seeing that the jobs are started and completed as per schedule prepared by the scheduling cell of PP&C.

Production Control involves actual issue of forms and paper work.

Production Control involves keeping track of what is happening and collecting information as to what has happened.

Production Control involves suggesting remedial action when the job is falling behind schedule.

Production Control is thus a diffused activity and includes functions such as dispatching, progressing and expanding.

Objectives of Production Control

Customer Service: Customer service is the set of behaviors that a business undertakes during its

interaction with its customers. It can also refer to a specific person or desk which is set up to provide general assistance to customers. The term customer care has been increasingly adopted by firms, and is generally synonymous in meaning.

Factors which contribute to Good Customer Service1. Understanding the customers needs2. Wide product range 3. Good quality products/services provided4. Delivery service

Optimum Inventory Level:Optimum Inventory Level is the best utilisation of the materials at hand and the

proper use of stores. So as to minimze blocakage of capital, storage space, orders lost and oportunity cost.

• Understand the Purposes of, and the Processes Used for Inventory Management to Support Operations and Meet Customer Requirements

• Define the Typical Conflicting Goals of Inventory in Companies and Their Impact on Company Success

• Learn the Critical Areas of Expertise Required By the Materials Management Function to Proactively Perform, Understand, and Manage the Inventory Cycle/Supply Chain of the Firm

• Learn How to Build an Inventory Management Strategy That Is Consistent with the Goals of the Firms

• Learn the Proper Measurements for Inventory and Other Associate Costs Within a Company

Increase in productivity:

In economics, productivity is the amount of output created (in terms of goods produced or services rendered) per unit input used. For instance, labour productivity is typically measured as output per worker or output per labour-hour. With respect to land, the "yield" is equivalent to "land productivity".

Companies can increase productivity in a variety of ways. The most obvious methods involve automation and computerization which minimize the tasks that must be performed by employees. Recently, less obvious techniques are being employed that involve ergonomic design and worker comfort. A comfortable employee, the theory maintains, can produce more than a counterpart who struggles through the day. In fact, some studies claim that measures such as raising workplace temperature can have a drastic effect on office productivity. Experiments done by the Japanese Shiseido corporation also suggested that productivity could be increased by means of perfuming or deodorising the air conditioning system of workplaces.

Increases in productivity also can influence society more broadly, by improving living standards, and creating income. They are central to the process generating economic growth and capital accumulation.

A new theory suggests that the increased contribution that productivity has on economic growth is largely due to the relatively high price of technology and its exportation via trade, as well as domestic use due to high demand, rather than attributing it to micro economic efficiency theories which tend to downsize economic growth and reduce labor productivity for the most part.

Production and Employment Stabilization:After Production Planning, the production control starts what it does is have a

stabilizing effect on the whole production process.Also after working every thing out and deciding jobs, they are allocated to different skilled labour, this is Employment Stabilization.

Effective Communication:

People in organizations typically spend over 75% of their time in an interpersonal situation; thus it is no surprise to find that at the root of a large number of organizational problems is poor communications. Effective communication is an essential component of

organizational success whether it is at the interpersonal, intergroup, intragroup, organizational, or external levels.

In this chapter we will cover the basic process of communication and then we will cover some of the most difficult communication issues managers’ face-providing constructive and effective feedback and performance appraisal.

Economy of the Time:

All Production control processes will be directly influenced by the Economy of that time. Also the data collected provides the executives with a sound basis for long term planning.

Elements of Production Control

Dispatching:

Dispatching is the trickiest part of production planning and control. It concerns in physical release of manufacturing order and allocation of jobs to workmen on different machine; withdrawing materials and tools for such jobs form stores and delivering in advance to shop; supervising movement of materials form and to the machines and inspection bays; keeps records of idle time and spoilage of jobs during manufacturing; co-ordination with scheduler and shop; exercising day to day control on work in progress; and reporting delays and interruptions. Dispatchers therefore may be looked upon as the representatives of production planning and control department.

Follow-up:

Progressing is the process of checking actual performance against the production plan and reporting exceptional deviations to the concerned authorities for the corrective action. Progressive function consists in keeping a watch on flow of materials, recognition of delays and interruptions, taking steps to rush up the remaining operations, and communication possible delays to the customer (wherever necessary)

It is some times argued that progressing is only a substitute for poor planning. Should a driver take his hands of the steering wheel because the road is straight? No he cant do this. Similarly, progressing is required even if the material control and process planning functions are discharged satisfactorily scheduling is done properly, manufacturing orders are released on date and the foremen carries out the plan as outlines in the schedules. There are usually a number of factors which tend to push the schedules of the mark. Some of the important ones are as under;

Delay in receipt of material form vendors. Excessive absenteeism (more that normal).

Machine Breakdown.

Excessive spoilage.

Errors in drawings.

Strikes.

The need for progressing is also created when the customers do the follow-up on their own to know the status of their jobs.

Inspection:

An inspection is, most generally, an organised examination or formal evaluation exercise. It involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regards to an object or activity. The results are usually compared to specified requirements and standards for determining whether the item or activity is in line with these targets. Inspections are usually non-destructive.

Evaluation and Corrective action:

Evaluation is the systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone.

Evaluation methods and techniques

Case study Clinical trial

Competitor analysis

Content analysis

Cost-benefit analysis

Feasibility study

Marketing research

Process improvement

Quality management

Six Sigma

Total Quality Management

Corrective Action

Action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity. There can be more than one nonconformity. Corrective action is taken to prevent recurrence. Correction relates to containment whereas corrective action relates to the root cause. Done on the basis of the Evaluation methods and techniques.

Scope of Production Control

Quality Control:

In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements and expectations. These systems are often developed in conjunction with other business and engineering disciplines using a cross-functional approach.

Total quality control

Total Quality Control is the most necessary inspection control of all in cases where, despite statistical quality control techniques or quality improvements implemented, sales decrease.

The major problem which leads to a decrease in sales was that the specifications did not include the most important factor, “What the customer required”.

The major characteristics, ignored during the search to improve manufacture and overall business performance were:-

• Reliability • Maintainability • Safety

Activity Control:

It involves the release of manufacturing orders and resources through dispatching.

Replacement Control:

It involves replacement of rejected raw materials and work in process by fresh inventories.

Labour Efficiency Control:

In classical economics and all micro-economics labour is a measure of the work done by human beings and is one of three factors of production, the others being land and capital. There are macro-economic system theories which have created a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not necessarily their actual work), although there are also counterposing macro-economic system theories that think human capital is a contradiction in terms.

Types of labour

• Highly Skilled • Skilled • Semi Skilled• Unskilled• Volunteer • Manual labour

• Wage labour

Control on Tools:

It involves making available proper tools as required by the specification of production.

Control on Inventory:

Inventory control is concerned with minimizing the total cost of inventory. The term often used is stock control. The three main factors in inventory control decision making process are:

• The cost of holding the stock (e.g., based on the interest rate). • The cost of placing an order (e.g., for row material stocks) or the set-up cost of

production. • The cost of shortage, i.e., what is lost if the stock is insufficient to meet all demand.

Control on Method:

Method study is the process of subjecting work to systematic, critical scrutiny in order to make it more effective and/or more efficient.

It was originally designed for the analysis and improvement of repetitive, manual work, but it can be used for all types of activity at all levels of an organisation.

The process is often seen as a linear, described by its main steps of:

• Select (the work to be studied); • Record (all relevant information about that work); • Examine (the recorded information); • Develop (an improved way of doing things); • Install (the new method as standard practice); • Maintain (the new standard proactive).

Procedure for Production Control

Order Control:

Work order control personnel coordinate maintenance service activities between physical plant shops where multi-crafts are required. They handle all work order requests for the campus and distribute them to the appropriate shops. Work order control also schedules and oversees special projects for other campus departments. The department performs back charging for work order related activities, and maintains records of labor/material costs.

Production Control:

The procedure of planning, routing, scheduling, dispatching, and expediting the flow of materials, parts, subassemblies, and assemblies within the plant from the start to the finished product in an orderly and efficient manner.

Coordinating the interaction of people, materials, and machinery so that products are made in the proper amounts at the required times to fill orders.

The control of resources such as manpower, money, machinery, production plants and materials throughout the complete production process.

Flow Control:

Continuous industry is known to produce mass consumption goods. as orders are repetitive in nature flow control is conveniently used. It is because planning and control activities do not much change with time. In flow control the deviation for the plan is kept at minimum level so that the system operates most effectively.

Load Control:

Load control gets its name form the emphasis that it puts on key machines. It allocates the time of large key machines to certain orders or products e.g. in printing presses. Load control is smooth in continuous industry but not in intermittent industry because machines need to stop when there is change for one lot to another.

Block Control:

Block control is both a method of realizing identical amount of work to the factory at half the intervals and a method of pushing orders through. Block control uses no schedules in the usual senses of the term. Department are required to finish the whole block before clearing the next block.

Special Project Control:

Order control used in ordinary job lot shops are not used for special project or giant products. Giants products, for production control processes are through of as being made up of major schedules or segments.

Sub-Contracting:

Subcontracting involves haring another firm to do some of the manufacturing process or to give component parts that will be used to marketing the finished good. In other word, subcontracting is one method of buying instead of making. Sub contraction refers to contractual arrangement between manufacturing units. It will save the buyers form incurring investment cost in specialized machinery and tooling which may not be usable for these regular production requirements. As the subcontractor incurs such cost, it is reflected in his operation cost. There is a factor of relative cost between doing the job in the plan and subcontracting for it.

Conclusion

In today’s day and age and for the production managers of tomorrow it is critical that they follow Production control, to optimize the production rate, productivity, and minimize the cost of production. This decision can be taken on the basis objectives of production control. Implementing the elements of production control considering, the procedures of production control.

Bibliography

Websites:

http://strategicsourcing.navy.mil/reference_documents/defs.cfm

http://www.crfonline.org/orc/glossary/p.html

http://www.crfonline.org/orc/glossary/p.html

http://www.lmu.ac.uk/lis/imgtserv/tools/methods.htm

http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/Business-stat/otherapplets/Inventory.htm

http://pp.ualr.edu/work_order_control.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org

Books:

Production (operations) Management - Prof. L.C.Jhamb

Production and operation management - Prof. Chase Jacob