Free HSC Industrial Technology Flashcard Review

Strategic management sets long-term direction, markets and major resource commitments. Operational management controls daily jobs, people, equipment and immediate problems. In a five-person workshop the owner may make both kinds of decision, so classify the decision by scope and time horizon rather than the person's title.

The coordination that converts strategy into departmental plans, budgets, training and targets over the medium term. For example, after a strategic decision to buy a CNC router, tactical work schedules finance, training, layout and maintenance before daily operation begins.

People and resources performing specialist functions such as design, production, marketing or finance. This arrangement deepens expertise and shares specialist equipment, but cross-functional work is needed when one order depends on several departments.

Departments can become silos, causing promises, designs or purchases to proceed without current production information. A practical warning sign is sales promising a date before checking capacity, or design releasing a specification before purchasing checks availability.

When products, customer groups or locations need clear accountability and faster decisions, accepting some duplicated resources. A product division may respond quickly to its own customers, yet duplicated designers, buyers or machines can raise cost across the whole business.

An employee may receive competing priorities from a functional manager and a project manager, requiring clear escalation and capacity rules. A priority rule, capacity meeting and named escalation authority prevent the same worker receiving incompatible instructions for two urgent jobs.

The chart shows formal authority; the process map shows how work, information, queues and decisions actually move. Trace one order from enquiry to dispatch: the map can reveal a two-day approval queue even when the formal chart shows a short reporting line.

The person detecting a non-conformance can stop or contain work and reach someone authorised to decide its disposition. Effective authority includes identifying and quarantining the item, recording the issue and preventing further processing until an approved decision.

First-pass yield, on-time delivery, cycle time and customer returns; rework, material yield and approval time can also be relevant. Use measures together. Higher output can conceal lower first-pass yield, so acceptable units, rework and delivery should be compared over similar work.

Use it for the company's stated products or claims, then corroborate operations and effects with observation, interviews, records or independent sources. For an industry example, pair a website claim with a site observation or interview and state any access limit instead of inventing a performance figure.

A deliberate change to roles, ownership, workflow, capacity or supplier relationships in response to a diagnosed problem or opportunity. Restructuring may include forming production cells, outsourcing a process or changing management layers; it should follow evidence, not a cost-cutting slogan.

Without comparable before data, later changes in output, quality or delivery cannot be attributed credibly to the restructure. Record product mix and demand as well as performance. A busy repeat-order month can make a new structure appear better than it is.

The constrained production stage that limits the throughput of the whole process. If finishing handles 12 units per hour while cutting handles 30, faster cutting adds queue and work-in-progress unless finishing capability changes.

18 sets per hour, because machining is the constraint unless its effective capacity changes. Improving an upstream stage above 18 sets per hour will not raise line output; the business must protect or improve machining, then see where the constraint moves.

The proportion of output meeting requirements without rework. If 100 items are made and 8 require rework, first-pass yield is 92%, even if all 100 eventually leave after correction.

It rewards defective output. Productivity should use acceptable output and disclose rework or scrap. Compare good units per labour hour. Counting rejected and reworked units as equal output makes a failing process look productive.

A grouping of different equipment and skills around a family of products to reduce travel, queues and hand-offs. A furniture cell might combine sawing, edge finishing, drilling and assembly for one product family, reducing movement while requiring broader competence.

They shorten feedback and limit the number of parts made before a defect is detected, though changeovers may increase. With batches of 10, a setup fault may be found after 10 parts rather than 100; the gain must be balanced against extra setup time.

Planning turns needs into specifications and controls; assurance builds confidence the system will meet them through procedures, competence, audits and records. Planning decides what door gap and finish are acceptable. Assurance controls drawings, training and gauges; control measures actual doors during production.

An authorised decision to rework, repair under concession, accept, downgrade, return or scrap an item. A concession must be authorised against function and customer requirements. An operator cannot silently accept a dimension simply because rework is inconvenient.