Professional Documents
Culture Documents
: Apply industrial management approaches to human resource domain
CO‐2: Apply Production Planning and Control philosophy to Industry in delivering the
products in time.
CO‐3: Plan optimum inventory model for deterministic and probabilistic demand
CO‐4: Develop methods for ensuring the required quality of the products or processes
CO‐5: Incorporate decision theory approaches under Uncertainty and Risk conditions
Production Planning & Control (PPC)
PPC can be defined as the process of planning the production in advance, setting the
exact route of each item, fixing the starting and finishing date for each item, giving
production orders to shop and lastly following up the progress of products according to
orders. It is also called the ‘nerve center’ of the factory. Production, or Operations
Planning and Control is concerned with implementing the plans, i.e., the detailed
scheduling of jobs, assigning of workloads to machines (and people), and the actual
flow of work through the system. Production Planning and Control (PPC) philosophy is:
“First plan your work, then work your plan”. Before starting any work, planning is
necessary for the effective utilization of available resources. Planning is the
determination phase of production management.
Objectives of production planning and control
The objectives of PPC are to:
1. Design and plan all activities for ensuring production of quality products at right
time.
2. Ensure efficient and effective utilisation of various resources in a plant.
3. Coordinate activities among various departments in plant/shop floor for optimum
efficiency.
4. Maintain adequate inventories of raw material, work‐in‐progress and finished goods
for meeting production and delivery schedules.
5. Maintain flexibility in manufacturing operations.
6. Eliminate bottlenecks in production process.
7. Establish production targets and check it against performance achieved.
8. Ensure that promised delivery dates are met.
9. Minimize cost of production.
10. Increase production efficiency of plant.
11. Develop team spirit among people for achieving higher efficiency.
12. Reduce work related to supervision by creating interest in work among staff.
Advantages of Production Planning and Control
A properly designed PPC system offers several advantages for a company. Some of
them are:
1. Better PPC results in meeting promised delivery dates to customers that in turn
leads to increased customer satisfaction.
2. It results in major cost savings for a company.
3. It helps to keep production process as per schedule, thereby resulting in few rush
orders. This results in better management of processes related to production.
4. It leads to an effective inventory management that ultimately results in reduction
of overall production costs.
5. It results in less work stoppage and thus leads to increased productivity.
Functions of Production Planning and Control
The main functions of PPC are the co‐ordination of all the activities, which exist during
production or manufacturing.
1. Materials:
• This function ensures that the raw material, standard finished parts, finished parts of
products must be available while starting the operation within the time.
2. Methods:
• This function is concerned with the analysis of all methods of manufacturing and
selecting the best appropriate method according to the given set of circumstances and
facilities.
3. Machines and Equipments:
• It is important that, methods of manufacturing should be related to the available
production facilities coupled with a detail study of equipment replacement policy.
• This function is concerned with the detailed analysis of the production facilities,
maintenance procedures and equipment policy.
4. Routing:
• It refers to the flow of sequence of operation and processes to be followed in
producing a particular product.
• It determines manufacturing operation and their sequence.
5. Estimating:
• This function is concerned with estimation of operation time.
• The operation time can be worked out once the overall method and sequence of
operation is fixed and process sheet for each operation is available.
6. Loading:
• Once the route sheet has been prepared, the workpiece required can be loaded
against the selected machine.
• The total time required to perform the operation is computed.
• This is the function of loading, and it results in a tabulated list or chart showing the
planned utilization of the machines in the plant.
7. Scheduling:
• Scheduling is the last of the planning functions. It determines when an operation is to
be performed or when the given task is to be completed.
• It is concerned with fixation of starting and completion dates for a particular
operation.
8. Dispatching:
• It means authorizing the start of an operation on the shop floor. This function may be
centralized or decentralized.
9. Expediting:
• It is also called Follow up or Progress.
• Follow up which regulates the progress of materials and parts through the
production process. It is closely interrelated with activities of dispatching.
10. Inspection:
• Its assessment is important in the execution of current program.
• It forms a basis for future investigations with respect to method, process etc. which
is useful for evaluation phase.
11. Evaluating:
• This is the integral part of control function.
• The evaluating function is concerned with providing a feedback mechanism on the
long term basis so that the past experience can be evaluated with the aim of
improving utilization of method and facilities.
Production Control : Routing
• Routing means to follow the route by the raw material.
• Routing is defined as ‘the decision to follow the path and sequence of operations
to be performed on the work piece from one machine to another’.
• It determines as to what work is to be done and where and how it will be done
and who will do it.
• It also includes the determination of path that the workpiece shall follow and
necessary sequence of operations which must be done on the workpiece.
• The objective of routing is to utilize machines and men at their fullest capacity.
• In job order production, the route sheets have to be prepared for every new job.
• In case of mass production, the route sheet is prepared only once.
Routing Procedure
The following steps are followed in routing procedure:
1. Analysis of finished product:
• The finished product is analyzed thoroughly in order to determine as to how many
parts are to be manufactured in the plant and how many parts of the finished product
should be purchased from outside.
2. Bill of material:
• A list of parts to be purchased from outside is prepared.
• From this list, a bill of material is prepared showing name of the part, quantity,
material, specification etc.
• This bill of material is submitted to the purchasing department for processing the
material.
3. Sequence of operation:
• The operation to be performed at each stage of manufacturing and their sequence is
determined.
• The machine or the place where the operations are to be performed is also decided.
4. Preparation of route sheets:
• This is the last step of routing procedure. In this step, a route sheet is prepared.
• Route sheet shows the sequence of operations, their department, machines and
tools used.
Route Sheet
• It is also called as route card. It lists the manufacturing operations in the decided
sequence along with the machines associated with each operation.
• It also indicates the department in which the operation is to be done and the part will
go for the next operation.
• It also consists of the information such as part name, part number, and product
number of that part to identify that part.
• The route sheet gives information about the material specification and cutting tools,
jigs and fixtures and necessary devices for each operation.
• In some route sheets some space is available to draw the part sketch at the right top
side of the route sheet.
• A typical route sheet is shown
Scheduling
Scheduling can be defined as “prescribing of when and where each operation necessary
to manufacture the product is to be performed.” It is also defined as “establishing of
times at which to begin and complete each event or operation comprising a procedure”.
The principle aim of scheduling is to plan the sequence of work so that production can
be systematically arranged towards the end of completion of all products by due date.
Principles of Scheduling
1. The principle of optimum task size: Scheduling tends to achieve maximum efficiency
when the task sizes are small, and all tasks of same order of magnitude.
2. Principle of optimum production plan: The planning should be such that it imposes
an equal load on all plants.
3. Principle of optimum sequence: Scheduling tends to achieve the maximum efficiency
when the work is planned so that work hours are normally used in the same sequence.
Inputs to Scheduling
1. Performance standards: The information regarding the performance standards
(standard times for operations) helps to know the capacity in order to assign required
machine hours to the facility.
2. Units in which loading and scheduling is to be expressed.
3. Effective capacity of the work centre.
4. Demand pattern and extent of flexibility to be provided for rush orders.
5. Overlapping of operations.
6. Individual job schedules.
Difference between Routing and Scheduling
Factors Affecting Scheduling
Following factors affect the scheduling plan:
1. External Factors:
• These are the factors that are not within the control of the management.
• These factors are dictated by the outside forces and to which management tries to
adjust.
• Some of the external factors are:
• Customer’s demand.
• Customer’s delivery date.
• Stock of goods lying with dealers and retailers.
2. Internal Factors:
• These are the factors which are within the control of the management.
• These factors can be manipulated by the management to achieve the objectives of
production function.
• Some of the internal factors are:
• Availability of machines and equipments necessary for job.
• Availability of materials.
• Availability of man power.
• Time interval to process finished goods.
• Stock of finished goods available.
Types of Scheduling
Types of scheduling can be categorized as forward scheduling and backward scheduling.
1. Forward scheduling is commonly used in job shops where customers place their orders
on “needed as soon as possible” basis. Forward scheduling determines start and finish
times of next priority job by assigning it the earliest available time slot and from that
time, determines when the job will be finished in that work centre. Since the job and its
components start as early as possible, they will typically be completed before they are
due at the subsequent work centres in the routing. The forward method generates in the
process inventory that are needed at subsequent work centres and higher inventory cost.
Forward scheduling is simple to use and it gets jobs done in shorter lead times, compared
to backward scheduling.
2. Backward scheduling is often used in assembly type industries and commit in advance
to specific delivery dates. Backward scheduling determines the start and finish times for
waiting jobs by assigning them to the latest available time slot that will enable each job to
be completed just when it is due, but done before. By assigning jobs as late as possible,
backward scheduling minimizes inventories since a job is not completed until it must go
directly to the next work centre on its routing.
SCHEDULING METHODOLOGY
The scheduling methodology depends upon the type of industry, organization, product,
and level of sophistication required. They are:
1. Charts and boards, 2. Priority decision rules, and 3. Mathematical programming
methods.
1. Gantt Charts and Boards
Gantt charts and associated scheduling boards have been extensively used scheduling
devices in the past, although many of the charts are now drawn by computer. Gantt
charts are extremely easy to understand and can quickly reveal the current or
planned situation to all concerned. They are used in several forms, namely,
(a) Scheduling or progress charts, which depicts the sequential schedule;
(b) Load charts, which show the work assigned to a group of workers or machines;
(c) Record a chart, which are used to record the actual operating times and delays of
workers and machines.
Example 5.4. A piece of mining equipment requires the manufacturing times shown
in Table 5.3. Each of the activities must be done sequentially, except that steel
fabrication can begin 2 weeks after purchasing begins, and the hydraulics and
electrical activities can be done concurrently. Construct a Gantt chart for this job.
2. Priority Decision Rules
Priority decision rules are simplified guidelines for determining the sequence in
which jobs will be done. In some firms these rules take the place of priority planning
systems such as MRP systems. Following are some of the priority rules followed.
3. Mathematical Programming Methods
Scheduling is a complex resource allocation problem. Firms process capacity, labour
skills, materials and they seek to allocate their use so as to maximize a profit or service
objective, or perhaps meet a demand while minimizing costs.
The following are some of the models used in scheduling and production control.
(a) Linear programming model: Here all the constraints and objective functions are
formulated as a linear equation and then problem is solved for optimality. Simplex
method, transportation methods and assignment method are major methods used here.
(b) PERT/CPM network model: PERT/CPM network is the network showing the
sequence of operations for a project and the precedence relation between the activities
to be completed
Dispatching
Dispatching is defined as “starting the actual production of a particular work which has
been planned in routing scheduling”.
• It consists of releasing of manufacturing orders and instructions and physically
handling of the manufacturing order of the work to the different departments.
• From this master order, each department gives order of work on different machines
through foreman.
• A person known as dispatcher has the duty of dispatching the orders to the
concerned person at proper time.
• The dispatching function may be centralized or decentralized.
• In a centralized dispatch system, a central dispatching department orders directly to
the worker or foreman. It maintains a full record of the work done and work in
progress.
• In a decentralized system, these functions are performed by the foreman. He is
responsible to get the work done within the scheduled duration.
The duties of dispatcher are as follows:
1. To issue work order to different departments.2. To release material orders from
stores. 3. To ensure release of correct tools, jigs and fixtures. 4. Keep a record of
starting and completion date of each operation. 5. Collection of route sheets and other
documents from the shops.6. Issue of inspection order after each operation.
The various formats of work order issued by dispatching departments are given
below: 1. Work order 2. Time card 3. Inspection tickets 4. Move tickets 5. Tool and
equipment tickets 6. Material requisition form
Follow‐up(Expediting) and Progress Report
The objective of follow‐up is to ensure that jobs are progressing as per the planned
schedule. Flow process charts are used in follow‐up phase that gives a graphical
representation of various operations, transportation, inspection, delays and shortages
during production process.
The duties include:
(a) Identification of bottlenecks and delays and interruptions because of which the
production schedule may be disrupted.
(b) To devise action plans (remedies) for correcting the errors.
(c) To see that production rate is in line with schedule.
After dispatching production orders to various shops, it is necessary to regulate the
progress of job through various processes. For this purpose, a follow up section is
formed. The function of follow‐up section is to report daily the progress of work in
each shop in a prescribed format and to investigate the causes of deviation from the
planned performance. This section sees that production is being performed as per
schedule and tries to expedite it.
Purpose of Controlling
Material: should reach the shop in required time so that production could be started
as per schedule.
Job progress: the follow up section sees that a particular product is passing through all
its operation from raw material to final shape as per schedule.
Assembly: follow up section sees that all the parts should be ready for assembly
purpose in actual quantities at required time.
Causes of delay includes:
• Error in routing, scheduling and dispatching
• Shortage and delay of material supply
• Equipment breakdown
• Lack of proper tools, gauges, jigs and fixtures, etc.