Review Questions

Review Questions

1. How are product variety and production quality related when comparing typical factories?

* Production quality, inversely proportional to production variety

* The higher the product variety, the lower the production quantity, and vice versa

* It changes over time

2. What is manufacturing capability?

* Technical/physical limitation of company to produce quantity/size product

* 3 categories of capability: technological processing, physical size & weight, production capacity

3. What is batch production? Why is it often used for medium-quantity production products?

* Groups or batches processed together through manufacturing process

* All processed at a given station before the group proceeds to another station

* Medium/low quality production: Same machines are used (to produce many types)

* Changeover occurs when machine switches from one product to another

* Requires the machine to be torn down and set up for new product

* Allows time to be distributed across a large number of parts and reduce the average operation time per part

4. What is the difference between a process layout and a product layout in a production facility?

* Process layout: Machinery is arranged based on the type of process

* Must visit the departments in order of the operations be performed

(including large travel distance between plant)

* Often used when product variety is large the operation sequences of products are dissimilar

* Product layout: Machinery is arranged based on the general flow of products that will be produced

* Travel distance reduced because products will flow to next machine in the sequence

* Works well when all products tend to follow the same sequence of production

5. High-volume production of assembled products is most closely associated with which one of the following layout types:

(a) Cellular layout

(b) Fixed position layout

(c)...