Production, however, is the act of making things; in particular the act of making products that will be traded or sold commercially. Production decisions concentrate on what goods to produce, how to produce them, the costs of producing them, and optimizing the mix of resource inputs used in their production.



Productivity and production management is the art of conducting and directing, through the application of frameworks and techniques, all aspects and operations of developing, creating, and innovating products.

Productivity and production management’s ultimate goal is the efficient consumption and allocation of resource inputs to maximize the quality and quantity of goods produced or services rendered.

To improve productivity and production management, organizations should use forecasts on demand to preordain production plans. Through it, miscalculations could be sidestepped. Businesses that produce to order would be able to supervise the backlog of unfilled orders, while those that produce to stock would be enabled to observe and control the level of inventory. Forecasting capabilities could be enhanced by way of incorporating excellent information technology.

Another tool for enhancement is standardization—a necessary foundation on which innovations can be focused. Standardizing methods can be implemented by prognosticating revolution on product and on process. These involve methodologies such as process reengineering and major product redesign, both requiring process automation. Some enterprises choose to do small upgrading at a time to minimize the cost of these processes.

Another way to improve productivity and production management is keeping managers vigilant of the factors that constitute problems regarding quality, cost and time in the production area. The most popular approaches are lean manufacturing and workplace improvement. Both approaches encourage worker and management collaboration emanating mutual respect; and straightforward and transparent improvement methodologies.

Lean marketing is the methodical extermination of wastes that are the root of productivity and production incompetence and slow advancements. These wastes may include: overproduction; inaccurate inventory; slow-paced transportation; product defects; and unnecessary processes.

Workplace improvement involves activities such as developing good relationships circling around the workers, management, suppliers and consumers; acquiring proper and state-of-the-art technology; empowering workers to make improvements; improving production scheduling, quality assurance, inventory, manufacturing methods and efficiency control; and conserving materials, energy and time.

To gain productivity and production management advantage, the aforementioned can be organizationally applied. If not, researching on ways on developing this field could be conducted. One point is vital: total restructuring of productivity and production ways is harder than maintaining good and tested practices.

Copyright 2007 Ismael D. Tabije