3e2a1b56-dafb-454d-87ad-86adea3e7b86

666
Glossary
Productivity: the ration of what is produced by an operation
or process to what is required to produce it, that
is, the output from the operation divided by the input to
the operation.
Product layout: locating transforming resources in a
sequence defined by the processing needs of a product
or service.
Product–process matrix: a model derived by Hayes and
Wheelwright that demonstrates that natural fit between
volume and variety of products and services produced
by an operation on one hand, and the process type used
to produce products and services on the other.
Product /service flexibility: the operation’s ability to introduce
new or modified products and services.
Product/service life cycle: a generalized model of the
behaviour of both customers and competitors during
the life of a product or service:; it is generally held to
have four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and
decline.
Product structure: diagram that shows the constituent
component parts of a product or service package and
the order in which the component parts are brought
together (often called components structure).
Product technology: the embedded technology within a
product or service, as distinct from process technology.
Professional services: service processes that are devoted
to producing knowledge-based or advice-based services,
usually involving high customer contact and high customization,
examples include management consultants,
lawyers, architects, etc.
Programme: as used in project management, it is generally
taken to mean an ongoing process of change comprising
individual projects.
Programme evaluation and review technique (PERT): a
method of network planning that uses probabilistic time
estimates.
Project: a set of activities with a defined start point and
a defined end state which pursue a defined goal using a
defined set of resources.
Project manager: competent project managers are vital for
project success.
Project processes: processes that deal with discrete, usually
highly customized, products.
Prototyping: an initial design of a product or service devised
with the aim of further evaluating a design option.
Pull control: a term used in planning and control to indicate
that a workstation requests work from the previous
station only when it is required, one of the fundamental
principles of just-in-time planning and control.
Purchasing: the organizational function, often part of the
operations function, that forms contracts with suppliers
to buy in materials and services.
Push control: a term used in planning and control to
indicate that work is being sent forward to workstations
as soon as it is finished on the previous workstation.
Qualified worker: term used in work study to denote a
person who is accepted as having the necessary physical
attributes, intelligence, skill, education and knowledge
to perform the task.
Qualifiers: the competitive factors that have a minimum
level of performance (the qualifying level) below which
customers are unlikely to consider an operations performance
satisfactory.
Quality: there are many different approaches to defining
this. We define it as consistent conformance to customers’
expectations.
Quality characteristics: the various elements within the
concept of quality, such as functionality, appearance,
reliability, durability, recovery, etc.
Quality function deployment (QFD): a technique used to
ensure that the eventual design of a product or service
actually meets the needs of its customers (sometimes
called ‘house of quality’).
Quality loss function (QLF): a mathematical function
devised by Genichi Taguchi that includes all the costs of
deviating from a target performance.
Quality-related costs: an attempt to capture the broad cost
categories that are affected by, or affect, quality, usually
categorized as prevention costs, appraisal costs, internal
failure costs and external failure costs.
Quality sampling: the practice of inspecting only a sample
of products or services produced rather than every
single one.
Quality variables: measures of quality that can be measured
on a continuously variable scale, for example, length,
weight, etc.
Queuing theory: a mathematical approach that models
random arrival and processing activities in order to
predict the behaviour of queuing systems (also called
‘waiting line theory’).
Rating: a work study technique that attempts to assess a
worker’s rate of working relative to the observer’s concept
of standard performance – controversial and now
accepted as being an ambiguous process.
Received variety: the variety that occurs because the process
is not designed to prevent it.
Recovery: the activity (usually a predetermined process)
of minimizing the effects of an operation’s failure.
Redundancy: the extent to which a process, product or
service has systems or components that are used only
when other systems or components fail.
Relationship chart: a diagram used in layout to summarize
the relative desirability of facilities to be close to each other.