Forms of production

Forms of production
See also
Production line Operating system Production cycle Production rhythm Nested production Job shop Division of work Departmental planning Specialization

Form of production treated as a set of processes regulating flow of parts, assemblies, product between the workshops in production cycle may differ between companies functioning in different industries.

Basic forms of production

There are two basic forms of organization of the production process:

• rhythmic production (pipeline, repeating, stable, long batches of products) the direction of products is constant, which means that the workstations are arranged in the order corresponding to the various stages of the process. Rhythmic, pipelined production links individual workstations. It allocates specific operations to specialized group of employees.
• non-rhythmic production - (non-pipeline, nested, unique, unstable, short batches of products) - direction of products is variable and each workstation can work with different order of technological operations (i.e. make to order).

Forms of pipelined production

Fig. 1. Example of production process

• asynchronous pipeline - execution time of each process operation is not the same, which contributes to the disruption of the continuity of the production,
• synchronous pipeline - times of individual operations are equal to or are multiplies, allowing managers to closely bind workstations and achieve synchronization between them,
• pipeline with forced tact - automated transport system imposes the pace of work to all workstations on production line,
• automated pipeline - strict binding of machines and human operators working on the same production line, Production cycle runs automatically.

Forms of non rhythmic production

• in the cells formed around technology - there are no close links based on manufacturing process.
• in the cells formed around product groups - formed by linking the production process, links with other workstations are irregular and accidental or not occur at all,
• in production lines - irregular batches of different products produced periodically (e.g. manufacture to order).

See also:

• Unitary production (or make to order production)
• Mass production
• Lean production
• Serial production

References

• Buffa, E. S. (1961). Modern production management. Wiley.
• Daniels, P. W., & Bryson, J. R. (2002). Manufacturing services and servicing manufacturing: changing forms of production in advanced capitalist economies. Urban Studies, 39(5-6), 977-991.
• Heizer, J. (1983). Production and operation management.
• Smith, C. A. (1984). Forms of production in practice: Fresh approaches to simple commodity production. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 11(4), 201-221.
• Swamidass, P. M., Darlow, N., & Baines, T. (2001). Evolving forms of manufacturing strategy development: evidence and implications. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 21(10), 1289-1304.

Author: Krzysztof Wozniak