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TODO BSS: read & summarise Technology, task design and process layout content 🔼 📅 2023-11-06
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how technology, task design and process layout influence the operations process.
Technology
- “Technology is the application of science or knowledge that enables people to do new things or perform established tasks in new or better ways.”
- Examples of technology include:
- Office technology
- Robotics
- Computer Aided Design
- Computer Aided Manufacture
Task design
- “Task design involves :: classifying job activities in ways that make it easy for an employee to successfully perform and complete the task.”
- Attracting the right candidate for the task or job is the final part of a process:
- Task design → Job description → Person specification → Recruitment → Selection
- A skills audit is :: a formal process used to determine the present level of skilling and any skill shortfalls that need to be made up either through recruitment or through training in order to ensure that all tasks can be completed.
Process layout
- There are a number of different considerations when organising the physical layout of a workplace.
- The method adopted by managers will depend on the type of manufacturing operations or services performed by the business.
- Workplace layout options include:
? - process layout
- machines and equipment are grouped together by the function (process) they perform
- product layout
- machines and equipment relate to the sequence of tasks performed in manufacturing a product; for example, assembly line arrangement
- fixed position layout
- employees and equipment come to the product. (e.g. construction site)
- Office layout
- desk areas
The process layout:
- The process layout is :: the arrangement of machines so that machines and equipment are grouped together by the function (or process) they perform
- Process production deals with high-variety, low-volume production.
- each good has a different sequence of production and the steps involved are intermittent, moving from one department to another.
The product layout:
- The product layout layout is :: the equipment arrangement in relation to to the sequence of tasks performed in manufacturing a product
- Product production (mass production) follows an assembly line because it aims to achieve the best possible combination of personnel and machine use.
fixed positon layout:
- A fixed position layout is :: where a product remains in one location due to its weight or bulk.
- Project production deals with layout requirements for large-scale, bulky activities such as the construction of bridges, ships, aircraft or buildings. With project production, it is more efficient to bring materials to the site; workers and equipment come to the one work area.
Office layout:
- the focus of an office layout is :: to enable the work to be performed efficiently (with minimal unnecessary disruption and time wastage) in a safe office environment.
- Typically an office space is organised around discrete workstations.
- workstations in offices are :: the desk areas required by office workers
Activity questions
2022 HSC paper:
21; c:
Process layout 1 allows for more seating areas for more concurrent customers, with the compromise of kitchen spacing (workstation sizes), where the raw meat refrigerator machinery is positioned between the stove and finished burgers station, with the assembly station being far across from it’s prior and subsequent workstations in it’s stage of production. therefore the lead times for finished burger production will be significantly greater in process layout 1 compared to layout 2 where the stations are adequately ordered