ESSAY: Explain your answer.

(5 points each)

1. What do you mean by materials management? 

Materials management can be defined as the planning, directing,

controlling and coordinating activities that concern the supplies or
materials of the organization. Through this, we control the quality,
quantity, movement and flow of the materials from their point of
acquisition up to the point where they go into production process.

2. What is material planning and budgeting? 

Material planning and budgeting involves determining the raw materials

requirement that will be able to meet the production needs and estimating
or preparing a forecast on how much budget is needed to acquire said
materials. This can be used by the organization to lower the costs related to
inventory since planning and budgeting involves a study of various
alternatives and from that alone, we can compare which will be able to give
us the lowest cost of inventory.

3. What do you mean by purchasing? 

Purchasing is the act of buying the necessary resources that a company

needs to operate and/or manufacture its products. It is the procurement of
the proper materials required by a project and also involves the
determination of the required quality and assuring that it is met while
considering the costs incurred.

4. What do you mean by ‘Inventory Management’? 

Inventory management is a system and process that identify inventory

requirements, set targets, provides replenishment techniques and report
inventory status. It also involves monitoring of stocked goods and ensuring
that they are properly and promptly issued and preserved in the best
interest of the organization.

5. What is aggregate planning? 

Aggregate planning refers to the process of developing, analyzing and

maintaining a schedule of the operations of the organization in order that
the resources are efficiently used. It is an attempt to balance capacity and
demand while minimizing the costs

6. What is scheduling, and does it differ from aggregate

planning? 

Scheduling refers to the planning of activities in order to achieve goals and

objectives using the time available to you. It ensures that no time is wasted
on activities that does not add value to the product or does not benefit the
organization. It is almost the same as aggregate planning except it focuses
mainly on time. Time is a resource that we cannot buy and scheduling gives
us a way on how to use it effectively. Aggregate planning, on the other hand,
also focuses on using resources efficiently but it does not focus only on one
resource or factor. It can involve sales forecasts, production levels,
inventory levels and even customer backlogs.

7. What focused strategies are employed by production planners

to meet nonuniform demands? 

There are three focused strategies: chase demand strategy, level production
strategy, and stable work-force strategy. Chase demand strategy varies
production to match the demand. This uses changes in employment like
hiring and laying off workers, overtime and subcontracting. Level
production strategy, on the other hand, retains a stable work force with
constant output rate. Peak demands are satisfied through inventory
accumulation. Under this strategy, subcontracting and back orders can be
accepted. Lastly, stable work force which, unlike chase strategy, avoids
layoff of workers. It utilizes stable work force while permitting overtime,
part-time and idle time. In some cases, back orders, subcontracting and use
of inventories may also be used to meet the demand.

8. What are the major inputs to master production schedule? 

There are three major inputs to master production schedule. These are
forecasts of demands, customer orders and inventory on-hand from the
previous period. The time horizon of master scheduling depends upon the
type of product, volume of production and component lead times. These
inputs provide us with the information needed in order to set a time
horizon and allocate them properly to various production activities.
 9. Briefly discuss different measures of performance in single
machine scheduling with independent jobs.

The measures of performance used in single machine scheduling include

mean flow time, mean tardiness, maximum flow time, maximum tardiness
and number of tardy jobs. The mean flow time provides a measure of the
average time that a task spends within a systems well as the average
number of unfinished tasks in the system. The mean tardiness, on the other
hand, refers to the average lateness of a job failing to meet its due date.
Maximum flow time refers to the elapsed time between the start of the first
job in the sequence on first machine and the finish time of the last job in
the sequence on the last machine. Lastly, the number of tardy jobs refers to
the number of jobs waiting as in-process inventory.

10. Distinguish between single machine scheduling and flow

scheduling. 

The single machine-scheduling problem consists of n jobs with the same

single operation on each of the jobs, while the flow shop-scheduling
problem consists of n jobs with m operations on each of the jobs. In this
problem, all the jobs will have the same process sequences.

In single-machine scheduling, a set of independent, single operation jobs is

available for processing at time zero. One machine is also continuously
available even when work is waiting.

In flow shop scheduling, set of multiple-operation jobs is available for

processing at time zero. There are different machines that are continuously
available.

The similarities between them is that the set-up time of each job is
independent of its position in jobs sequence. Job descriptors are also
known in advance and each job is processed until its completion without
break.

11. Is TQM unrealistic and unattainable?

Total quality management (TQM) aims to continuously improve the quality

of products or services offered by a business through continuous feedback.
It looks at an organization as a collection of processes. The processes are
repeated overtime with various improvements based on data and feedbacks
for the betterment of the organization. For TQM to be successful, it must
involve all employees. It might seem difficult and impossible but nothing
great comes easy. It might be difficult to find a stable footing especially if
the organization’s still trying things out but as it improves and learn from
its mistakes, it will surely be successful. It may also take a long time to be
able to see its results but that does not make it unrealistic and unattainable.
If efforts are focused on things that needs attention, the business will surely
achieve the expectations and goals of the organization.

12. What are the benefits of Quality Management System?

Quality management system facilitates a business and helps in the

attainment of its objectives through ensuring the stability and reliability of
the techniques, equipment and resources being used in a project. This will
also ensure customer satisfaction as it strives to meet their requirements
and enhance the confidence of the customer towards the organization. Not
only it will focus with meeting the demand, but it will also focus on
attaining consistency in the products being offered to the market. As the
business strives to achieve these, there will be improvements of processes
and practices within the organization. Other benefits, especially in the long
run, include increase in production, less rework, increased financial
performance, increase in market share and improvement in internal
communications.