Manufacturing Process

Definition

Manufacturing is referred as use of machines, tools and labor to make things for use or sale.

It’s a Process of Making Raw Materials to Finished Goods.

Types of Manufacturing

There are three types of manufacturing,

Discrete.

Process.

Repetitive.

Discrete Manufacturing

Discrete manufacturing is typically characterized by the following:

Work orders produce a specific quantity of a single item for a specific completion date.

Routing instructions are a series of independent operations.

Components can be manually issued with the release of the work order, backflushed at the completion of the work order, or both.

Discrete manufacturing is most often used in the following manufacturing environments:

Make-to-stock, using either a highly repetitive or process order-based system

Any of the "to-order" strategies, such as make-to-order, assemble-to-order, or engineer-to-order

The one-off or job shop environment

Discrete manufacturing is used to produce items such as the following:

Cars

Furniture

Electronics

Airplanes

Process Manufacturing

Process manufacturing is typically characterized by the following:

Work orders produce multiple items, both coproducts and by-products, for a specific completion date.

Routing instructions are a series of dependent operations that work together continuously.

Products are often produced in batches or with a continuous process.

Components or ingredients are often stated in terms of a recipe or formula.

The quantities of components or ingredients can vary according to their grade or potency.

Components or ingredients can be issued by preflushing with the release of the work order or bacflushed at the completion of the work order.

Process manufacturing is most often used to produce the following:

a) Pharmaceuticals

b) Foods and beverages

c) Raw materials such as lumber, metals, and fluids

Repetitive Manufacturing

Repetitive manufacturing is typically characterized by the following:

• Entire production lines are dedicated to a family of products.

• Product families share similar components and routing instructions.

• Products are often manufactured in a continuous process that requires less inventory movement to and from the production line.

• Work center setup and changeover times between related products are minimized.

• Production is defined in units per hour. The time spent at the operational level might or might not be important. Therefore, you must be able to set up line capacity and define routing instructions in units per hour at the line level. The fundamental basis for back scheduling and capacity planning is hours. To view information in units, the system uses a conversion factor defined at the work center level.

• Visual cues, called kanbans, control material movement. Kanbans represent predetermined quantities of components at specified locations on the production line. They are designed to minimize work-in-process inventories.

Terms used in Manufacturing Process

Bill of Materials

Bill of materials is the primary method of defining and communicating the structure of the product.

Work centers

Work centers are the specific, physical locations on the shop floor where routing operations occur. A work center defines basic information such as the machines and number of people employed at the work center. Additional information can include work center rates for labor, machines, and setup; work center capacity; and machine efficiency.

Routing instructions

A routing lists the operations, in sequence, that are required to manufacture a product. Each operation within the routing identifies specific information such as the work center and time standards for setup, machine run, and labor hours.