DOC PREVIEW
VCU INFO 658 - Job Shop Properties

This preview shows page 1 out of 2 pages.

Save
View full document
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 2 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 2 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience

Unformatted text preview:

JOB SHOP PROPERTIESWhat might better be said about enterprises configured to for mass customization is that theywould admix some features of both process- and job-shops … with the balance of process vs. jobshop properties depending on whether the firm’s emphasis is more on “mass” or more on“customization”, respectively. Following here are a few thoughts about job shops to complementthe discussions in the Virtual Corporation: _____________________________________1. Note, first of all, that there are really two different guises in which the job shop can appear: RFP-driven, where the business answers requests for 'bids' on jobs whose requirements have been determined elsewhere; Innovation-driven, where the firm itself makes the determinations as to what products it will produce in pursuit of monopoly profits.In terms of critical managerial challenges, the success and survival of the former is most dependent on the qualityof its bidding process, while the integrity of the latter depends on making the 'strategic' decisions we associatedwith the most demanding of competitive contexts, i.e., those where competitors properly perceive themselves asplayers in a zero-sum game, such that whatever one gains is at the direct expense of the others. For RFP-driven jobshops, the most generally critical aspect of the bidding process is scheduling…this in the attempt to avoidover/under capacity. That is, the control emphasis is on maintaining a prospective equilibrium position betweendemand loading and capacity. In contrast, equilibrium maintenance for the typical process shop is a more leisurelyaffair, aimed at balancing demand with supply (vs. capacity) over some extended period. Moreover, process-shopequilibrium maintenance is more a retrospective than prospective activity. 2). The machines employed in job shop are typically less specialized (more versatile) than those used by processshops. Hence the former's greater reliance on the quality (i.e., craft) of its employees; that is, less 'programmation'demands more highly skilled and self-motivated personnel. 3). Given that the primary objective of enterprises qua process shop is to “stay in the neighborhood of the low-costproducer in the industry”, they will tend to have very elaborate cost-accounting systems. Allocation of costs is notso easy in the job shop environment. Moreover, because pricing (costing) a job must be undertaken in advance ofactual production (as an aspect of the bidding function), after-the-fact cost assessment data is of only limitedvalue…useful only to the extent that it might apply , in some part, to some future job. Moreover, job shop pricingdepends on factors other than cost (e.g., capacity leveling, retention of skilled personnel, prospective leverage on aclient). 4). In terms of basic structure, most process shops will be organized around functions, whereas most job shops willbe organized around projects (programs, LOB's, etc.). The ‘programmation’ characteristic of process shops arguesfor a high degree of integration via centralization. In contrast, the job shop's emphasis on skilled or professionalpersonnel and operational inconstancy argues against bureaucratic rigidity or standing policy impositions, and soputs the emphasis on lateral integration via team-work, management-by-consensus, etc. 5). Because life is so inconstant for the job shop, they cannot rely on the straightforward statistical (performancemonitor based) incremental-improvement or fine-tuning related industrial engineering tools that can serve theprocess shop (which can even look to approach 'optimality' via brute trial-and-error vs. analytic techniques). Incontrast, job shops must have instruments that can combine both empirical (historical) data and opinion (notionalarguments) in an attempt to reconfigure the shop for each entry/exit of a job. Beyond this, the job shop and processshop are defined over different units-of-analysis, i.e., the former is best viewed as a collection of semi-autonomousworkstations which can be combined in different ways to produce a multiplicity of different processing states(configurations), while process shops have only a singular (stationary) processing state. 6). The dependency of the job shop on modern versatility-related manufacturing technologies especiallyCAD/CAM based FMS setups is obviously going to be greater than that of the typical process shop (for whichtraditional efficiency-related or optimization-seeking instruments are still appropriate).7). When one talks about a 'customer orientation' (a feature of the so-called horizontal enterprise), such talk willgenerally be more relevant to the PFP-based (vs. innovation-driven) job shop than the process shop. True, a processshop may produce a few variations on a theme for different customers. But the degree of differentiation among thevarious product lines must be rather insignificant ... more cosmetic than elemental. Not so with the RFP-driven jobshop. Hence the need, in the latter, for customer-specific or product-specific information subsystems, and for anintegrative suprasystem of some sort (a macrocybernetic construct, most desirably). In contrast, theinnovation-driven job shop ought to rather more introspective, with the products it elects to produce owing more totechnological considerations than customer-elicited preferences (recall the various empirical cases indicating thefutility of trying to follow customer-inspired lines of innovation ... the Edsel and IBM's laptop, etc.).8). Note that quality is always to be treated as a variable, not a constant! Concepts like TQM or even Demming'sapproach may be affectively appealing, but they are not to be universally recommended for either process or jobshops. After all, if high-quality quality were indeed a critical commandment for managements (especially ofprocess shops), there would be no Walmart. 9). Job shops may not be able to benefit much from the much -touted Just-In-Time (JIT-type) inventory managementinitiatives. For one thing, disparity between the material requirements of various jobs may argue against thelong-term, intimate relationships with suppliers that a process shop might meaningfully pursue (via Kieretsu-typeassociations). For another, some job shops may


View Full Document

VCU INFO 658 - Job Shop Properties

Documents in this Course
FLURRY

FLURRY

2 pages

HANDMADES

HANDMADES

13 pages

IPOD

IPOD

2 pages

SWARMS

SWARMS

7 pages

AMAZON

AMAZON

4 pages

INTEL

INTEL

3 pages

WEbook

WEbook

2 pages

SAAS

SAAS

3 pages

Load more
Download Job Shop Properties
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view Job Shop Properties and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view Job Shop Properties 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?