Production Subsystems

Materials Maintenance System

This system is responsible for the upkeep of your materials. If you own a pet store, for example, all of the animals will need to be fed regularly, or if you own a grocery store, products that are past their due date will need to be removed from the shelves.

What materials must be regularly maintained in your business and how?

Receiving System

Your Receiving System controls the flow of materials into your business. You may have designed a financial system for this earlier on in “Finance,” but you may not yet have a system for organizing the mechanics of this activity.

This system will likely connect to your Inventory Management System. Also, for some businesses, this system may overlap or connect with the Shipping System.

The following questions will help you design your Receiving System.

How are deliveries to your business confirmed for accuracy and who is accountable for this?

What happens to those deliveries once they arrive and who is accountable for this?

Create a Receiving System using your answers to the above.

Purchasing System

This is the system that controls the purchasing of your materials. It could also be considered one of your financial control systems (see “Finance”); so you may already have it in place. You may not have a system for identifying your purchasing needs, gathering quotes, or placing your orders yet, however.

The following questions will help you design your Purchasing System.

How are your various purchasing needs determined? Who is accountable for this?

Are quotes gathered before making major purchases? If so, how? Who is accountable for this?

How are purchase orders made? Who is accountable for this?

Create a Purchasing System using your answers to the above.

Packaging System

Your packaging system will control the way your products or services are presented to your customers. You identified your desired results in Research and Development, so you already know what you are looking for. Here in Production you'll design the systems that make this happen. If your products are sold in some type of container, for example, your packaging system will put your products in those containers.

Depending on your production process, your Packaging System may be included as part of your Manufacturing System.

Outline your packaging needs in the space below.

Create your own Packaging System.

In this chapter you should have designed, shared, and made a plan to review your:

• Critical Constraint acting on your production and made a plan to minimize or remove it.
• Production Schedules.
• Production Flowchart.
• Production Strategy.
• Production Systems.
• Inventory Management System.
• Inventory Controls System.
• Materials Maintenance System.
• Receiving System.
• Purchasing System.
• Manufacturing System.
• Packaging System.