Introduction to Materials Management

1. Introduction to Materials Management Chapter 14 – Products and Processes

2. Product Life Cycle • Introduction Phase – Expensive, risky with low sales volume • Growth Phase – Rapid increase in sales and profits, unsuccessful designs “forced out” • Maturity Phase – Sales “flatten”, prices and profits fall due to competition • Decline Phase – Both sales and profits tend to fall as product nears end of its “life”

3. Life Cycle of a Product Figure 14.1 Life cycle of a product

4. Product Development Principles • Simplification – cut waste by eliminating needless varieties, sizes, and types • Standardization – develop a well-defined specification for material, configuration, etc. • Many products use modularization • Specialization – focus of efforts and design • Product or market focus – serve a defined customer grouping • Process focus – concentrate on a particular process

5. Other Product Design Issues • Products must be designed to be: • Functional – designed to perform as specified • Capable of low-cost processing • Concurrent Engineering – Design by teams representing all related company functions • Reduced time to market • Reduced cost to design • Better quality

6. Factors Impacting Process Designs • Product design and quality levels needed • Demand patterns and flexibility needed • Quantity and capacity issues • Degree of customer involvement • Make or buy decisions

7. Process Systems • Flow Process • Product layout, where a limited range of products flows from workstation to workstation at a nearly constant rate • Intermittent Processes • Where products of many design move in a jumbled pattern from workstation to workstation • Project or fixed position Processes

8. Material Flow Examples Figure 14.5 Material flow: flow process Figure 14.6 Material flow: intermittent process

9. Tradeoff of Fixed versus Variable Costs Figure 14.7 Total cost versus quantity produced

10. Continuous Process Improvement • Select the process to be studied • Record and collect data in a useful form • Analyze the data to generate improved methods • Evaluate alternatives and select method • Install as standard practice • Maintain the new method

11. Process Flow Charts – Classes of Activity Figure 14.10 Classes of activity

12. Process Flow Chart Example Figure 14.12 Process flow diagram

13. Human Factors • Job Design • Job enlargement • Job enrichment • Job rotation • Self-directed work teams and empowerment • Learning curve impacts