Production control

One type of production control would not be sufficient for

all manufacturing situations. The control system needed for an

automobile assembly, for example, is entirely different than the

one needed for a plant producing one-of-a-kind punch presses.

The type of control system depends upon the type of production.

The president of a manufacturing concern is responsible for the production

control, but production control is actually the

responsibility of whoever is directly charged with the

production; the works manager, the plant manager, or the

manufacturing vice president. Except in a very small

organization, this person has many problems and so delegates his

responsibility of the coordination of the production facilities

to produce a product on schedule at an optimum cost. These

responsibilites are gathered under one function: under the

Production controller.

Responsibilities for control consist of three stages: the

planning, action and compiance states; and each production

activity is subject to these three stages of control. When an

activity does not comply with the plan the planning and action

stages must be repeated; so the stages continually cycle until

the activity is completed.

The planning stage; rotating. Rotating determines where the

work is to be done. Scheduling: Scheduling determines when the

work is to be done. It sets the timing of production control,

and is not unlike the establishment for theaters and other

similar activities.

The action stage-dispatching: Dispatching is the function of

issuing the orders at the correct time, a function similar to the

dispatching of trains in the rail road industry. In flow

control, dispatching consists of notifying the production

facilites of the quantity needed, while in order control it

becomes a complex procedure of issuing numerous production orders

to direct and indirect workers.

The compliance stage: Expediting--this is the function of

determining whether or not the work is progressing as planned.

The expenditor serves as the feedback link between the performance

of work and the scheduling and routing functions of production

control. The work of today's expeditor has been reduced because

it has been replaced by formal progress reports which are

collected and processed by automatic data processing.

The objective of production contol is to coordinate

production facilities, and numerous communication enterfaces

occur with the other departments. They all have a common

interest in making a product on schedule at an optimum cost, but

the method of doing it is at times a source of disagreement.

References:

Greene, James. Production Contol: Systems and Design.

Homewood, IL: Homewood Press, 1987

Halpin, Daniel & Woodhead, Ronald Construction Management

1991