Basic Production Planning - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course Date Basic Production Planning In a manufacturing plant, various departments function in a coordinated manner in the processing of raw materials until the final product is completed. It is crucial that the units within the plant operate efficiently to ensure successful production, and the mechanism, known as production planning (Mugwindiri et al. 116). This requires that all resources are brought together for successful assessment of future markets. Production planning is carried out early enough to find the route that each individual item assembly, setting and the final product would take. It also involves the release of needed orders to initiate specific activities. A typical production cycle is outlined below: As Verlag points out, the planning process begins by setting the goal, where the purpose of the production is clearly stated and the goals generated, selected and prioritised (9). The ultimate goal of a production plan, like all the other manufacturing controls, is to contribute to the revenue of the business. Business profits are enhanced by keeping the consumers satisfied by ensuring that all the delivery schedules are met. Production planning may specifically want to ensure that routes are established as well as work schedules that will ensure optimization of materials, machines and workers utilization and the provision of the means that will ensure effective operation of the plant according to these plans. Production planning process Process planning may be defined by a sequence of activities which could include: An interpretation of the various specifications included during the definition drawing of a component part like dimensions and tolerance, surface roughness, blank size, geometric tolerances, number parts in a given batch etc. The process will also involve the selection of appropriate processes and tools that are used in the processing of a part together with its features by considering the constraints imposed in the definition drawing. Production planning process requires that production tolerances are established and determined and their setting dimensions also determined so that the design tolerances are executed. The production dimensions are also chosen for reason of commodity and capability of the manufacturing machinery. The planning process includes operation sequencing conducted as a result of the priorities imposed by the degree of accuracy required and the technological constraints. Various elementary operations could also be grouped on the same machine in an effort to redude the operation time, while at the same time observing the accuracy specifications. Efforts should also be directed towards selection of machines that will perform the technological operations. The selection process should ensure the machines selected will manage to deliver the number of work pieces to be produced. Appropriate inspection methods together with the instruments required to achieve effective inspection should also be selected to guarantee that the final components will conform with functional requirements. Planning will also require that the process conditions are determined for all elementary operations to enable the computation of working times and costs so as to carry out an economic evaluation. There will be need for editing of process sheets for them before they are assembled in a detailed process planning file that will be transferred to the manufacturing operators for execution (Halevi & Weill 2). Capacity planning In high-technology and huge volume plants, like semiconductors and consumer electronics, the success of the firm’s management of its production capacity is one of the most critical for the firm’s long-term success (Argoneto et al 2). Firms find it challenging to estimate demand for high-tech products even in economies that are otherwise stable. Innovations in this industry causes short lifecycles, long production lead times, and low production yield. Although in markets where there are sustained demand growth firms can build inventories or make space for excess capacity to provide a buffer against the variations in demand, many firms will not be able to take such risks in downtown markets. There is need therefore, for capacity planning that will involve not only the business’ own capacity investment, but the supply chain investment of its partners. Capacity investments for a given firm within the supply chain has potential to enormously affect the performance of all the other upstream and downstream firms; there is need therefore for strategic interactions in the development of such investments (Argoneto et al 2). System design of the manufacturing plant is the first level planning that involves the determination of process inputs, activities for the conversion of inputs to outputs and the actual outputs of the manufacturing operation (Panneerselvam 61). Decisions made during the design stage are critical because they are associated with the investment capital. The initial outlay and the expenses incurred during the operation of the plant should be established depending on the design decisions, which in turn affect the productivity of the concern if future. In essence, they significantly affect the fixed and variable costs. Preliminary estimations of the plant capacity must be done based on long-tem forecasting, say for between 5 and 10 years into the future. The design capacity will determine the quantity of output that will be delivered by the plant when operating in full scale. For instance, a cement factory may have the capacity to produce 200 tons every day. The expected future demand for the period between 5 and 10 years is considered as the approximate design capacity since extensive frequent expansion may not be sustainable. Planners must be keen to note that the system capacity realised, which is the maximum output for a given product or product mix that the system of workers and machinery will be capable to produce, may not be equal to the design capacity. The actual output may even be lower that the system capacity since the output will be affected by short-range factors like actual demand, personal absenteeism, equipment malfunctioning etc. Various strategies may be used to address capacity requirements as the firm determines the long-term and short-term capacity needs. The following strategies may be used by the leadership to address the challenges so that the business provides customers in effectively into the future. The management may have to engage in: Developing new product lines Expanding existing facilities, or Constructing or phasing out production plants according to the needs of the market. Rapid technological advancements may force a plant to use phase-in strategy that will enable it introduce the next model of a particular product or service to remain competitive in the market. This is common in electronics industries which are kept on constant research and developments aimed at improving the features of the products. While the firm addresses long-term capacity needs, there will be short-term needs that will also needed to be addressed. In the short-term planning process, decisions are made in response to varying product demand that results from seasonal and economic factors. the management may need to consider subcontracting, firing, overtime, hiring, etc so as to address the present needs of the production process (Panneerselvam 61). Selection of production equipment Equipment selection involves the identification of the set of equipments that are most suitable for delivering the products. For firms engaging in mass production, there will be need to establish a product line for a given product or a number of products with shared processing requirements. While considering the sequence during the operation of the process, it will be critical to ensure that the equipment is available. At the various stages of the production line, there can be identified various equipment that will satisfy the requirements in the processing operation. It is possible to carefully select a particular machine that can serve all the requirements at a particular operation or to carry out clubbing of more than two consecutive operations in the line. This will help in the reduction of the production line length, as successfully achieved in machine centres. When planning for batch production using process layout, it is not easy to dedicate a single machine for a specific product. Several products are delivered through a single machine. Therefore, during process planning, it is critical to select machines by first considering the availability of the machine and the requirements in the process operation so that products do not travel long distances and that they are delivered with minimum set-up times. However, in general, it is important to consider the economy of scale. This can be done by listing all the available alternatives for selection of the equipments and then making the decision by choosing the best alternative. When specific information is available about the actual output requirements for the system, then it is possible to easily work out the size or amount of equipment needed to realise this output by working backward taking into account the system inefficiencies. Any limitations in capacity are always stated in terms of the efficiencies of the equipments or amount of scrap loss (Panneerselvam 62). For instance, if the normal scrap loss is approximately 3%, then the system’s efficiency will be 97%. To determine the required system capacity, we can divide this efficiency (0.97) into the output required. Finally, when the system capacity by the specific machine capacity will give the number of machines needed for each machine type. Works Cited Argoneto et al. Production Planning in Production Networks: Models for Medium and Short- term Planning. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2008 Halevi G. & Weill R. Principles of Process Planning: A logical Approach. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 1995 Mugwindiri K., Nyemba W.R., Madanhire I. and Mushoga R. “The Design of a Production Planning and Control System for a Food Manufacturing Company in a Developing Country, using Simulation”. International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM) 2.6 (2013): 116 – 125 Buzacott John, Corsten Hans, Gössinger Ralf, and Schneider Herfried. Production Planning Control: Basics and Concepts. Berlin: Verlag Oldenbourg, 2012 Pannneerselvam R. Production and operations management. Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd, 2012 Read More