Management of Serving Activity

Besides the basic and auxiliary production of any industrial company, there is also a servicing production achieved after the activity to store and respectively to transport. The storage must provide the material resources needed by the basic production. The necessary material resources are stored in various constructive types of warehouses taking into account the structure and nature of the stored materials. The storage activity management uses an indicator system, the calculation method of which takes into account the warehouse size and the volume of materials that are stored and how long they will stay in the warehouse. Regardless of whether they are within companies, between the production departments or between the working stations, transports very much condition the basic production efficiency. Internal transports are based on a series of principles and are performed in various ways. Every transportation system has a certain structure, a certain cost, and a certain duration of the transportation process. When making an industrial company’s internal transportation efficient, the rationalisation of transportation has a very significant influence.

The Management of Basic Production Functions

The production achieved in any industrial company is generically called basic production that needs an appropriate management that is different for every type of mass, serial, or individual production. Every type of production is based on a set of mathematical restrictions that quantitatively and qualitatively quantify that type of production. The fundamentals of the management of any basic production refers to: the production cycle that has a certain structure, and the total duration, the size of which considers both the way that product is made and the graph of moving the benchmarks from one operation to another; the manufacturing batch and, respectively, the optimal manufacturing batch, meaning the time elapsed between the release into production of two consecutive batches. A special case is the production achieved on a single object and multiple object flow manufacturing lines variably and constantly, continuously and discontinuously, etc. Every flow manufacturing line has a certain cadence, a certain tact, generates certain costs, and has certain characteristics. In the case of control production, it can be organised by taking into account the product position or the nature of the manufacturing process. Every type of production generates costs that are different in terms of the structure and calculation, and the use of the electronic calculation technique is imperatively necessary.

The Use of Budgets in Forecasting the Activity of the Firm

In the current definition, the budget is a financial plan by means of which the shares of all relevant resources related to achieving an objective within a certain organisational subdivision are provided in the financial expression. The budget is the result of the budgeting activity that is characterised by: planning and coordinating, authority and responsibility, communication, control, etc. Any budget meets several functions and namely: prediction, control, providing the financial balance, etc. Budgeting the company’s activity involves preparing of budgets related to its functions, namely: the budget of production that includes the manufacturing budget, the budget related to machines and equipment, the budget related to the labour force, the budget of raw materials and consumables, the overall production budget, the commercial budget, meaning the seller’s budget, the budget of sales managers, the commercial manager’s budget, the commercial budget itself, the budget of the investments by emphasising the budget of the commercial and industrial investments, the budget of the research-development activity by emphasising the expenses related to this activity, the budget of treasury, meaning the budget of revenues, the budget of payments and correlation between them, etc. In the activity of the company’s manager, applying the management by budgets involves going through several stages: sizing the objectives in financial form, preparing the system of budgets at the company’s level by fields, organising the information system related to budgets, the control of budgetary system, etc.

Operational Production Structures Used in the Multi-Serving System

In terms of organisation, the production achieved by polyservice of machines and equipment implies the existence of some independent organisational links. The organisation of the polyservice activity by departments and workshops inside of which great importance should be given to the system of grouping the machines and equipment, studying the optimal conditions to locate them. Organising the production by single or multiple object, continuous or discontinuous flow, manufacturing lines takes into account: the parameters of the flow line, parameters concerning the labour force, the parameters of the machine-tools, technological parameters, etc. Another form of organising the production obtained through polyservice is the production departments in the composition of which there are numerically and automatically controlled machine tools. Organising the production obtained through polyservice may also be done in production departments, in the composition of which there are the transfer machine-tools, processing centres, and manufacturing cells. Organising the flexible manufacturing systems takes into account: the number of benchmarks that will be processed, reduction of the duration to design and make new products, typification and modulation of SDVs, equipping the machines and equipment with standardised SDVs, etc. The most efficient organisational form is the production departments in the composition of which there are the flexible manufacturing cells provided with industrial robots.

Scheduling the Production Obtained by Production Processes where Several Operations Are Performed and Repeated at Time Intervals Previously Set Forth for Various Products

Programming the production obtained by processing the raw materials in several operations that are repeated at certain time intervals previously set forth for various products aims the serial production organised by manufacturing batches. The size of the manufacturing series implies determining the optimal level of the manufacturing series that takes into account the correlation of the number of products that will be manufactured with the unitary expenses, which are in turn based on total expenses established according to the expenses incurred by the immobilisations of means and those related to the time to prepare-complete the manufacturing batch. The optimal size of the series influences the level of the manufacturing batch next to the size of the preparation-completion time, operative time, and manufacturing conditions. Based on the two previously established sizes, the duration of the manufacturing cycle is calculated, separately emphasising the duration of processing and of interruptions. Once the manufacturing cycle duration is established, the possible calendar moves forward and the size of the half-finished stocks necessary for the smooth operation of the flow manufacturing line is established. Balancing the scheduled production is to be done on that manufacturing line and takes into account its correlation with the production capacity for every workplace and each machine-operation during the period of repeatability of manufacturing batches and of the transport batches.

Elements of Logistics Used in Industrial Operational Management

Under the conditions of the current economic-social development within the industrial company’s management, there occurs a new function, that of logistics, which has a decisive influence on the company’s other functions. Thus, the industrial company’s logistics is systematically approached, emphasising its elements, namely: production logistics, commercial logistics, operational logistics, sales support logistics, pilotage logistics. In the industrial company’s organisational structure, logistics has an independent position, and the implementation of any logistical study within the company incurs costs related to the supply transportation, related to the distribution, related to the operation of warehouses, etc. These costs can be deemed as being total costs that depend on the total quantity that is subject to the logistical process. Any activity of logistics within the company can be analysed by means of a questionnaire called Logitest. The absence of the activity of logistics within the company or an inappropriate activity of logistics may lead to the occurrence of a logistic drama—the Logidram that emphasises the client-supplier conflict, the conflicts inside the company, the conflicts with the logistic operators, etc.

Auxiliary Production Management

Besides the basic production achieved in any company, there is also an auxiliary production influencing the smooth performance of the basic production process. Thus, an efficient basic production is inconceivable without equipping the machines and plants with SDVs (Verifying Devices Tools), without needing the reorganisation and modernisation of machines and plants, the timely maintenance and repair of working machines and plants, etc. The repair activity is based on the repair cycle structure—technical overhauls, current repairs, overall repairs—the selected method for performing the repairs—as needed, by firm planning, after controlling the state of the machines, preventively-planned, etc.—how to perform the repairs—centralised, decentralised, mixed—etc. The modernisation and reorganisation of the machines applies the method of single indicators, the method of the indicators systems, the method of comparing costs in time and space, etc. The production of SDVs is based on their structure and classification and implies both the activity to design them based on some appropriate methods and the way to locate and structure the departments or divisions that produce SDVs. The energetic department—thermal power, electrical power, compressed air—plays a very important role in any industrial company and refers to the manufacture and use of power.

Considerations on Multi-Service on Workstations

Polyservicing the workplaces takes into account the cycle of processing the benchmarks by machine tools and their features and implies a thorough analysis of the technical, organisational, and economic aspects. It is thus intended to efficiently use the machines and machine tools including the worker’s working time. Grouping the processing operations by machine tools will be done depending on the technological structure of each operation, given the use index of the machines, the effective use index of labour, the structure and duration of the operations necessary to make the product, the type of the machine tools used. Polyservicing the machine-tools is featured by a series of parameters: the duration of the working cycle of a machine, the duration of the polyservicing cycle, optimal number of machines that can be services, the coefficient to use the performer’s working time, etc. Combining the operations to be done on various machine tools is based on the types of technological processes and is done separately for manufacturing unique products, serial production, and mass production. Establishing the optimal production conditions for polyservicing can be done by using the theory of “waiting queues” and “Markov chain,” which is based on three elements, namely: input into the process, the servicing mechanism, and the type and way of servicing. Optimising the polyservice of machines can be done using the “Takacs and Runnenburg model,” which basically solves the issue of the general distribution of servicing times and the “method of the mechanisation coefficient,” which takes into account the influence of cost on the number of polyserviced machines.

Scheduling the Production Obtained by Means of Production Processes Organised in Variable Flow

The production processes are analysed, where multiple products are made in continuous or discontinuous flow, and their movement between two successive workplaces are performed in batches. It is a matter of homogenous groups of products and analogous groups of products that have the same order in terms of passing by the various workplaces, but it is not mandatory for these products to go by all workplaces. The processing times by operations of various products are not the same. Taking into account the synchronisation level, the flow production lines of the benchmarks can be in continuous flow or discontinuous flow, which requires or does not require an adjustment of the flow production line. It is necessary to know the order of assembling and delivering the finished products and the labour volume related to adjusting the machines to achieve a high level of loading the machines and equipment on the flow manufacturing line. The sizes, gauge, and volume of the parts that are processed on the flow production line must be known. It is necessary to elaborate the production schedule of the variable flow line that will take into account the nature of the products that are to be manufactured, the time needed to process each product at a workplace, the total product processing time achieved on that flow manufacturing line. For this, the level of loading every workplace and flow manufacturing line, the demand of performers stated in man/hour, time to occupy a job, and the manufacturing line, etc. will all be calculated. Should the production be achieved by production processes where a single operation is performed for similar products, but of different sizes or quality, the production schedule for this type of production shall correlate the production thusly achieved with the production capacity for a complete production cycle. Determining the frequency of releases of products into manufacturing is based on the criterion of production expenses totaled for all products that are made by processing in that operation.

Capacity of Production

It is always necessary to differentiate between an industrial company’s production capacity (it shows the industrial company’s maximum possible production in a time interval of one year), the production achieved by the industrial company, and industrial company’s size (its size in terms of production volume that it may achieve). The production capacity can be analysed under two aspects, dynamic and static. Taking into account the specificity of the production departments within an industrial company, the production capacity must be calculated separately for the basic departments, auxiliary departments, and service departments. Knowing the production capacity and production volume achieved, the capacity reserves shall be determined, which can generally be extensive or intensive. When analysing and optimising the level of the production capacity, the operative management has a special role. The constructive, material, and technological preparation of production that shall be achieved within the industrial companies influences how the production capacity is calculated as well as its size.