Answer:
Production management is viewed as a continuous process of planning, organising and controlling:
- Planning: It includes all activities that establish a course of action. These activities guide future decision-making. It involves product planning, facility planning and designing of the conversion process.
- Organising: It includes all activities that establish a structure of tasks (organisation structure) and authority. Thus, it determines the activities required to achieve the operations, sub-systems goals and assign authority and responsibility for carrying them out.
- Controlling: It includes all activities that ensure that actual performance is in accordance with planned performance. This is done by developing standards and communication networks necessary to ensure that the organising, staffing and directing functions are pursuing appropriate plans and achieving objectives.
The major objective of production management is to produce quality goods and services. In present day position, the objective of any firm is to increase profitability through higher efficiency, higher productivity, by improving quality, and to give customer more confidence by providing him products of quality at the right price and at the right time (JIT concept).
This can be achieved through:
- Optimal use of resources (men, machines and materials).
- By maximising use of manpower and machines, or minimising wastage of materials.
- Ensuring quality of goods at minimal cost through use of statistical quality control techniques.
- Contributing towards all round productivity through decision-making and quantitative techniques or techniques.
Scope of Production Management
Scope of production management includes:
- Activities relating to designing or formulation of the production system.
- Activities relating to analysing and controlling of production operation after the production system has been activated.
Activities relating to Production System Designing
These activities concern the production engineering which includes problems relating to:
- Design of tools and drawings;
- Designing development and installation of equipments;
- The selection and operation of the size of the firm;
- The selection of the overall plans;
- Location plans;
- Plant layouts;
- Materials handling systems, etc.
Besides, the human factor problems and research and development are also considered.
Activities relating to Analysis and Control of Production
The major ones are:
- Production Planning: It includes preparation of short term production schedules, plan for maintaining the records of raw material and finished and semi-finished stock; specifying how the production resources of the concern are to be employed over some future time in response to the predicted demand for products and services.
- Production Control: After planning, the next managerial production function is to control the production plans because the production plans cannot be activated unless they are properly guided and controlled. For this purpose, production manager has to regulate work assignment, service work progress and check and remove discrepancies, if any, in the actual and planned performances. A production manager has to look after the production control activity through:
- Control on inventory such as raw materials, purchased parts, finished goods etc.
- Control on work in progress through production control.
- Control of quality through process control.
