Operation Manegament Ch4

c. Enables production to stock, which allows filling orders from inventory, and potentially long production runs.

Among the main disadvantages of standardization are the following:

a. Designs may be “frozen” with too many imperfections remaining.

b. The high cost of design changes increases resistance to improvement.

c. Decreased variety may lessen consumer appeal.

5. Modular design refers to viewing a product (and sometimes a service) as being composed of a number of “chunks” or sections instead of a collection of individual parts. In effect, it is one form of standardization. Among the advantages of modular design are ease of diagnosis and repair of failures, standardization of manufacturing, more routine purchasing, inventory control and training. The disadvantages of modular design include a decrease in possible variety of the product, the possibility of not being able to disassemble a module to replace a faulty part, and possible resistance to design improvements, particularly minor ones, if they cannot be readily incorporated into an existing configuration.

6. Product designers must take into consideration the organization’s manufacturing capabilities to produce a particular product. Operations people should be involved early in the design process to ensure that the design will be compatible with the organization’s capabilities. Production/ Operations people can provide the necessary input that make things apparent before problems arise in production. Marketing people should also be involved to ensure that customer requirements will be given proper consideration.

7. Some of the competitive advantages of concurrent engineering are:

a. Manufacturing personnel are able to identify production capabilities and capacities. Very often, they have some latitude in design in terms of selecting suitable materials and processes. Knowledge of production capabilities can help in the selection process. In addition, cost and quality considerations can be...