Manufacturing, Economics, Quality and Organisation - Coursework Example

Manufacturing: Economics, Quality and Organization Introduction Manufacturing organization involves an organization which undertakesthe industrial collaboration research in different areas of the global business organization. They include the control and planning of operation, effective management of people and designing of the modern system distribution. In this case, manufacturing involves the merchandise production and sale using machines, labor, tools, biological and chemical processing. The term can be used in referring to different activities of human including the handicraft and the high tech. It is applied in the industrial production of the raw material and their transformation to form the finished goods. In many cases, the finished goods are used in manufacturing the other goods or the products that are more complex like the household appliances, aircraft, and the auto mobile. These materials are normally sold to the retailers who then sell to the consumers or the end users (Rao, 2009). In different economic systems, manufacturing is an industry that takes over the market. For the economy of free marker, the manufacturing is normally directed to the mass production for the items that would be sold to consumers for a profit. For the collectivist economy, manufacturing would more frequently be directed towards the central state supply of the planned economy. The mixed market makes the manufacturing process to be advanced under some regulation by the government. The modern manufacturing could consider the intermediate processes that are needed in producing and integrating the complaints of the products. Industries like those of semiconductors and manufacturing of steel apply the term fabrication to refer to the process of manufacturing. The sector of manufacturing has more connection to the field of engineering and industrial design. In the early form the process of manufacturing was done using the artisans that were single skilled. The existing training was purely apprenticeship. Before the period of industrial revolution, different processes of manufacturing happened around the rural regions in which the household based acted as supplementation of the subsistence strategy instead of Agriculture. A good example is the toll manufacturing which is the arrangement through which one firm with specialized material oversees the processing of the raw material for another firm. This paper explores the aspects of manufacturing organization and the manner in which the manufacturing field would be organized to obtain efficiency and maximum profits. Manufacturing organization. The word manufacturing involves the process of making or processing the raw material to form the finished goods particularly in the industrial machines. Manufacturing organization process involves a number of processes. This includes the estimation, planning, scheduling, execution and evaluation. In order to evaluate the efficiency of manufacturing, it vital to note the exact processes that are always used in manufacturing the specific sections. The first stage in manufacturing organization involves the conceptual stage. This is the stage in which the designers give out the rough part definition of the characteristics that rely on the requirements of part. Information such as that o the material, the overall shape, and geographical data has to be given in this stage (Sharma, 2007). The data, in this case, would still be rough and fail to give a room for defining the manufacturing process extensively. The conceptual design stage is the initial estimation of the planning process. The operations of manufacturing may not be very detailed but would allow the manufacturing engineers to have the real ides of the required processes together with the needed resources. The obtained data will provide a first cost evaluation allowing the designers to make the adaptations of their decisions on costs. The next stage involves the conceptual plan process and conceptual design. After the stage of conceptual design, the manufacturing process would continue with a design stage that is considered being detailed. The main goal of the method involves starting the detail stage of design having the validated design concepts. This would be useful in preventing the detail stage to be repeated different times. This stage has three main steps which may be critical in the process of evaluation (Sharma, 2007). The selection of manufacturing is divided into four key activities. The main aim of these activities involves selecting the processes that would be compatible with the data from the stage of conceptual design. These activities include the determination of the compatible processes that rely on the material, the determination of the compatible processes that rely on the quantity, determination of the compatible processes that rely on the shape of the product, and the determination of the processes that rely on the tolerance. This process is considered being the potential process of the different processes. These processes can be prevented by the available material. For instance, it is widely known that the plastic part cannot be forged, hence the proposed processes give a reduced processes range proposed for the plan of the conceptual process. After the selection of the compatible processes, the processes could be ranked as per their relative cost then allowing the user to select the process needed for the following stages (Friedman, 2006). These stages are shown in figure 1. In this stage the processes would be known thus the process of evaluating the cost can be determined together with the type of resources, machines, fixtures, labor skills, and tools. Estimation of cost. After the selection of the process of manufacturing and the resources, the cost of the manufacturing process can easily be determined. There are different methods that can be used in calculating costs. The main techniques of determining the cost are shown in table 1. Table 1 show that the appropriate methods to be used in evaluating the cost of the manufacturing process would be either parametric or analogical. In cases where there exists little knowledge on the project, the analytic method way not be appropriate. These methods however may provide a rough estimation in allowing the designer to check the product validity in design. In this case, the conceptual stage will provide the information mostly given in the detailed stage of design. The information may not be accurate enough in allowing the analytic method. The method of the adapted cost entity was created by one scholar referred to H, Mida (Friedman, 2006). The method is evolutionary in nature. The method separates the different activities of the manufacturing organization such that each activity as some correspondence to the cost entity. This is shown in figure 2. In this case, the different cost entities are calculates. There exist some homogeneity in different activities which forms one of the merits of this method. The different activities can be considered in the form of the cost contribution. This would be given as , where In order to adapt the conceptual design method, the formula can be simplified through the selection of one driver and a single linked coefficient for the total cost entity. The coefficient would be the material or machine property (Rajput, 2007). This is so because the coefficients would be difficult in evaluation and may utilize the old estimations of the cost in determining them. The formula will be reduced to the form shown. In this case, the method will lead to utilizing the cost entity structures model together with the parametric method. The representation of the different cost can be considered using the taxonomy. The representation details the different types of the components of the cost entity together with the composition. This representation is displayed in figure 3. The scheme shows that the different direct costs including the indirect and the direct costs with the resulting relevance. The schemes enables the determination of the overall cost of the product in the conceptual stage of design. Table 2 presents the examples of the expressions of cost entities. Manufacturing system implementation Going through the two stages shown makes it possible for the evaluation of the good accuracy and the cost section of the early stage of design. These staged form the conceptual planning process and the model entity cost calculation. This process can only be successful with the implementation process. The taxonomy and the ontology process are useful in representing the linked vocabularies to the manufacturing field. It has the different classes of the object like people, tools and concepts like the cost. It has additional attributes to the classes and relationship of objects (Schey, 2007). The structuring of the taxonomy clearly shows the class instances and the hierarchy. The data dealt with in the conceptual process of planning could be classified in three categories. The first is the generalized information to the product, then the process data, and the resources. Figure 4 shows a detailed operational branch of manufacturing process. The implementation of this system will need the selection of the C integrated language production system (CLIPS). The system was introduced by NASA. The method gives a full environment towards the rule construction based on the systems of experts. Inserting the different rules in the system of an expert enables the selection of the compatible processes. Later the user will be tasked with the role of identifying whatever he would wish to use. This will help in the identification of the process and the cost involved. Besides this process it is vital to reinforce the idea that one should know the system principle and the customers that need to be satisfied. The manufacturing organization integrates the elements of the system that would satisfy the wants and the needs of the customers in an effective and a timely manner. Benefits of Manufacturing Organization Lean manufacturing can be defined as an effort by a manufacturing firm where the firm reduces its inputs but ensures that the required and targeted output is achieved. Mostly, lean manufacturing is maintained by the use of different but sophisticated tools and techniques. These techniques involves reduction of the number of human effort, reduce the space used for manufacturing and invest less in manufacturing tools but the firm still meets its targets and in the process can produce new products. Lean manufacturing has been noted as the latest trend in the manufacturing industries. However, it has its own negative implication. It is then very important to put some aspects into consideration before the approval of this kind of manufacturing in your company. Flexible Manufacturing Systems have multiple advantages. In the manufacturing of parts, FMS provide moderate demand and variability. The advantages include reduced WIP Inventory, increased machine utilization, reduced manufacturing lead-time, reduced labour, and ability to handle multiple different configurations of a part. Transfer line often control the number of parts at a given time on a material handling system. This way, the working process never exceeds the predetermined level. Here FMS is similar to Just in Time (JIT). This makes the inventory reduction advantageous. FMS greatly assists in reducing the changeover time, tooling times, and machine tool settings. Furthermore, FMS enables balancing of workload. This way, machine utilization is significantly improve.FMS reduces changeover time, and transportation. This leads to reduced lead-time for production. Besides, the lead-time is constant because of low cycle time variation in this system. FMS has the ability to handle a series of configurations because based on the available tooling the parts of machines can be launched easily into the system with no or little set up time. Furthermore, FMS can potentially process simultaneously parts configurations (Kaushish, 2008). The FMS’ automated material handling system has led to a significant decrease in manpower. Furthermore, the number of workers managing machines in FMS is relatively lower compared to conventional job shop (Rao, 2009). Positive implications of manufacturing systems. Most deterring factor associated with organization systems such as the FMS (Flexible Manufacturing Systems) is the cost. An example of a case involving the use of organization system that proved expensive is the Japan-based Yamazaki Machinery Company. The company installed a Flexible Machine system worth $1.8 million (Nageswara, 2000). The accrued benefit included the reduced number of manpower from 215 to 12, reduced number of machines from 68 to 18, reduced floor space from 103,000 square feet to about 30,000 square feet, and the reduced average processing time from 35 days to1.5 days. The above values are quite impressive. As indicated, the return on investment was 10 percent even with the total saving after 2 years being close to $6.0 million with a projected savings of 42.0 per year for 20 years envisaged (Nageswara, 2000). Manufacturing systems are prone to downtime. Flexible manufacturing system for can experience downtime for various reasons. Planned down time is a result of scheduled maintenance. In most cases, unplanned down time occurs due to electrical or mechanical failures. If the machine is low, the whole system continues functioning. However, where either the main computer or material handling fails the entire system becomes crippled. Lean manufacturing helps in the reduction of the overhead fixed cost to a less value of thirty percent. More so, it can also minimize the operational costs; raise the competitive advantages of the manufacturing firm and helps in the restoration factor of the firm (Wright, 2005). In addition to this, lean manufacturing helps in the reduction of the overall company wastes materials. Recent studies have shown that lean manufacturing also helps in the saving of the time used in manufacturing. Time is a basic factor in manufacturing. Time usually relates directly to the amount used. The more time used the more energy is used, the less time used the less amount of energy is used. This purely indicates that lean manufacturing would be of great impact in saving the operational cost of the firm. More so, lean manufacturing also contributes in the maintaining and increasing of the firm net profit and net earnings. More earnings are usually generated due to the reduction of the operational cost. Many manufacturing firm usually have a large piece of land that is not utilized. When a company employs lean manufacturing it reduce the available but unutilized space. This makes lean manufacturing the best manufacturing technique to implement in any manufacturing industry. Scholars has proved that if lean manufacturing is implemented and used correctly as required, it can help reduce the operational space by about five to thirty percent, putting into consideration that operational space is a key element that helps in the smooth and efficient running of the firm. More so, these techniques improve the firms efficiency and savings. Experts have estimated that all companies that are using the lean manufacturing has improved by productivity by more than eighty percent (Kalpakjian, 2005). In regard to this, unwanted equipment, wastes obsolete goods and behaviors are usually eliminated and in return productivity is improved. If anyone wants to achieve his target, implementing lean manufacturing should be a must do activity. This is because despite the few interruptions and distractions during manufacturing, when using lean manufacturing productivity is always increased. It is a general want for every business owner to have increased profits and earning. Lean manufacturing reduces or eliminates wastes which in turns increase the profits and earnings. More so, this also increases the relationship among customers. Negative implications of manufacturing systems The worst part of implementing lean manufacturing is that the owners need support and approval of other people. This on the other hand becomes a problem since not everyone is ready to embrace the change. More so, to implement lean manufacturing one need a qualified personnel that is able to relate well with the employees and the management within the company. More so, it needs training which would otherwise waste time and resources. It is evident that pros outdo the advantages. Hence, it would be advisable to implement lean manufacturing in every manufacturing firm (Dyer, 2011). A manufacturing organization refers to the organization that is involved inindustrially collaborative research in many aspects of global business organization including controlling planning of operations, designing of modern distribution systems and controlling effective people management. Section B Break-even graph Machine A Machine B The two graphs show that machine A is preferable to machine B because using machine A will lead higher profits that using machine B. Response to part B2 The company manufactures 2500 components. One component takes 4 minutes to be made. This means that 2500 components would take 2500*4 =10000minutes. One hour is equivalent to 60 minutes so 10000minutes will be equivalent to 166.67 hours. The cost of the material is £2 for one components. The total direct cost for all components would be 2 * 2500= £5000. The true cost of manufacturing would be the sum of direct labor cost + direct material cost. TC =LC+ MC= £5000 + ( 166.67 x 15)= £(5000+ 2500) =£ 7500 Response to part B3 By inspection, the cash flows figured are increasing for machine A, and decrease for machine B. Payback period for machine A is (5000+ 8000+ 12000+20000+25000+ 10,000) which is 5.3 Years. The payback period for machine B is (35000+25000+18,000+2000) which is 3.2 years. This means that the best machine would be machine B since it has a small payback period hence a small duration for the company to recover the investment. If a colleague disagrees with this choice and selects machine A it would be because of the increasing cash flows for machine A. Machine A shows the increasing cash flows where as machine B shows some decreasing cash flows. Increasing cash flows can predict increased profitability in a company. Decreasing cash flows may predict decreased profits. Reference Dyer, W., 2011. Ten secrets for success and inner peace. New York: Oxford University Press Friedman, D., 2006.Light at the end of the tunnel. New York: Oxford University Press Kalpakjian, S., 2005. Manufacturing, Engineering & Technology. New York: Prentice Hall. Kaushish, P., 2008. Manufacturing process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nageswara, P. 2000. Manufacturing Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rao, A., 2009. Manufacturing Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rajput, K. 2007. A Textbook of manufacturing technology: manufacturing process. New York: McGraw-Hill. Schey, A. 2007. Introduction to manufacturing. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sharma, P., 2007. A textbook of production technology: Manufacturing processes. New York: Jack and Sons. Wright, T., 2005. Process of Manufacturing. New York: Prentice Hall. Read More