Production control

Key takeaways

Production control belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Production control to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Production control from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Within supply chain management and manufacturing, production control is the activity of monitoring and controlling any particular production or operation. Production control is often run from a specific control room or operations room. With inventory control and quality control, production control is one of the key functions of operations management.

Overview Production control is the activity of monitoring and controlling a large physical facility or physically dispersed service. It is a "set of actions and decision taken during production to regulate output and obtain reasonable assurance that the specification will be met." The American Production and Inventory Control Society, nowadays APICS, defined production control in 1959 as:

Production control is the task of predicting, planning and scheduling work, taking into account manpower, materials availability and other capacity restrictions, and cost so as to achieve proper quality and quantity at the time it is needed and then following up the schedule to see that the plan is carried out, using whatever systems have proven satisfactory for the purpose. Production planning and control in larger factories is often run from a production planning department run by production controllers and a production control manager. Production monitoring and control of larger operations is often run from a central space, called a control room or operations room or operations control center (OCC). The emerging area of Project Production Management (PPM), based on viewing project activities as a production system, adopts the same notion of production control to take steps to regulate the behavior of a production system where in this case the production system is a capital project, rather than a physical facility or a physically dispersed service. Production control is to be contrasted with project controls. As explained, project controls have developed to become centralized functions to track project progress and identify deviations from plan and to forecast future progress, using metrics rooted in accounting principles.

Types

One type of production control is the control of manufacturing operations.

Production planning and control of the when and where. Production control and supply chain management Management of real-time operational in specific fields.

Production control in the television studio in a production control room Master control in television studio Production control in spaceflight in a Mission Operations Control Room Communist countries had a central production control institute, where the agricultural and industrial production for the whole nation was planned and controlled. In Customer Care environments production control is known as Workforce Management (WFM). Centralized Workforce Management teams are often called Command Center, Mission Control or WFM Shared Production Centers.

Related types of control in organizations Production control is just one of multiple types of control in organizations. Most commons other types are:

Management control, one of the managerial functions like planning, organizing, staffing and directing. It is an important function because it helps to check the errors and to take the corrective action so that deviation from standards are minimized and stated goals of the organization are achieved in a desired manner. Inventory control, the supervision of supply, storage and accessibility of items in order to ensure an adequate supply without excessive oversupply. Quality control, the process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production.

See also Control (management) Industrial engineering Manufacturing process management Materials management Operations management Production engineering Project production management Time book

References

Further reading Bedworth, David D., and James E. Bailey. Integrated production control systems: management, analysis, design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999. Eilon, Samuel. Elements of production planning and control. Macmillan, 1962. Groover, Mikell P. Automation, production systems, and computer-integrated manufacturing. Prentice Hall Press, 2007. Johnson, Lynwood A., and Douglas C. Montgomery. Operations research in production planning, scheduling, and inventory control. Vol. 6. New York: Wiley, 1974. C.E. Knoeppel. Graphic production control. New York, The Engineering magazine company, 1920 Koontz, Harold. "A preliminary statement of principles of planning and control." Academy of Management Journal 1.1 (1958): 45-61. Sipper, Daniel, and Robert L. Bulfin. Production: planning, control, and integration. McGraw-Hill Science, Engineering & Mathematics, 1997.

External links Media related to Production control at Wikimedia Commons Manufacturing Cost Model and Controlling

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Production control

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Production control claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Production control before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Production control ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Production control

In research: Production control appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Production control in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Production control is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Control engineering, Manufacturing, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Production control outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Production control in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Production control means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Production control out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Production control in simple terms?

Within supply chain management and manufacturing, production control is the activity of monitoring and controlling any particular production or operation. Production control is often run from a specific control room or operations room.

Why does Production control matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Production control?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Production control.