Production planning and control is a crucial aspect of any manufacturing process. This blog post will explore what the term means, why it is important, and how to do it well.
Introduction
Operations management is a critical function for any organization that seeks to produce goods or services. Production Planning and Control is a key part of operations management, as it ensures that the organization can meet customer demand while also maintaining efficient operations.
Why is it Important in Operations Management?
Production planning and control is a key part of operations management, and it plays a vital role in ensuring that products are manufactured efficiently and that quality standards are met.
There are many benefits to having a well-functioning production planning and control system in place.
- Perhaps most importantly, it can help to improve the overall efficiency of the manufacturing process. By better understanding production schedules and being able to anticipate potential problems, production planning can make adjustments that can help to keep the manufacturing process running smoothly.
- In addition, production planning and control can help to ensure that products are made to the correct specifications. This is important not only for meeting customer expectations but also for avoiding costly mistakes in the manufacturing process. By catching errors early on, production planning can save the company time and money.
- Finally, production planning and control can help to improve communication between different parts of the organization. By having a clear picture of the manufacturing process, everyone involved can be on the same page and working towards the same goal. This can result in a more coordinated and efficient operation.
Overall, production planning and control is an essential part of operations management. By improving
Scope of Production Planning And Control
Planning and control helps to optimize resources, minimize waste, and improve quality. In short, production planning and control is essential for ensuring that operations run smoothly and meet organizational objectives.
- Material:
Planning for the material procurement by analyzing at what right quantity is required, quality of material and getting delivered at right time from right supplier to avoid any unnecessary cost and discrepancy in the production. Along with these other factors like storage, standard process, cost analysis and regular supervision are allied with material. - Methods:
Production Planning and control helps in determining the best possible method for production out of many other alternative. - Machine and Equipment:
Once the method is finalized with proper production planning, then the decision to acquire machinery and other equipment becomes easy as the management already what would be the production capacity is required to create certain amount of finished goods. Also the maintenance and safety measures are planned correctly for smooth operation. - Manpower:
The planning helps in determining the necessary number of personnel, their qualifications and experience and also to take care of the growth in manpower with reasonable time period. - Routing:
In manufacturing industry the routing of material through various departments is very critical as each department has its own set of rules and people involved. This may be in form of movement, segregation and packaging. The management has to plan how they are going to manage this business with in their system and also from an economical point of view. - Estimating:
Estimating the time to get a standardized quality of performance from manpower and machinery.
The process of estimation is useful in the following areas:- Production scheduling
- Production control by use of Kanban System
- Estimating manpower requirements
- Estimating equipment requirements
- Estimating material requirements
- Estimating location, space and time
- Loading and Scheduling:
Loading refers to the jobs allocation to machines and manpower in relationship to the routing system of operation. It also depends on the production capacity machine and priority of delivering at certain time.
Scheduling is used to break down the master plan into individual plans which has to be implemented by a specific people and machinery at different points of time. This is done in such a way that the overall plan is completed within the specified period of time with maximum utilization of resources.
- Dispatching:
Dispatching consists of two parts. The first one is to arrange the schedule of production and in the second one, it arranges the allocation of staff and plant resources for production, according to these schedules. - Expediting:
The purpose of this activity is to prevent delays and to make sure that the responsible people take necessary steps for avoiding production delays. - Inspection:
The purpose of inspection is to detect defects in the process. The defects may be either external or internal. External defects are those which can be seen e.g. scratches, cracks etc., whereas internal defects include both hidden and latent ones e.g., wrong designs, alignments, wrong-product mix etc. In other words, the inspector identifies any deviations from the standards that were laid down for the purpose of producing defect free products/services. - Evaluating:
The purpose of evaluating is to measure the results of inspection and correction. The evaluation may be either quantitative or qualitative. It helps to learn the bottlenecks in process to further improve the quality and performance of operations. - Cost Control:
Cost control involves determining if the service/goods produced are profitable in relation to its cost.
Proper production planning and control helps in collecting and analyzing all costs associated with a quality program and then monitoring the cost-effectiveness of specific quality related activities. Further, wastage of raw material and resources can be avoided and reduce cost.
Conclusion
In conclusion, production planning and control is an important part of operations management. It helps to ensure that products are produced efficiently and that quality standards are met.
By using production planning and control methods, businesses can improve their overall operations and better meet the needs of their customers.
