INTRODUCTİON TO BUSİNESS

The field of supply chain management was born to manage the flow of information, products, and services across a network of customers, enterprises and supply chain partners. Supply chain management concentrates on input and output dimensions of transformation processes. Increasingly, however, as the transformation process is performed by suppliers who can be located around the world, the supply chain manager is also concerned with the timeliness, quality, and legalities of the suppliers’ operations

Just-In-Time (JIT) is a Japanese management philosophy which has been applied in practice since the early 1970s in many Japanese manufacturing companies. It was first developed and perfected within the Toyota manufacturing plants by Taiichi Ohno as a means of meeting consumer demands with minimum delays. Just-In-Time production is a Japanese management philosophy applied in manufacturing which involves having the right items of the right quality and quantity in the right place and the right time. It has been widely reported that the proper use of JIT production has resulted in increases in quality, productivity, and efficiency, improved communication and decreases in costs and wastes. The potential of gaining these benefits has made many organizations question and consider this approach to manufacturing. For these reasons, JIT has become a very popular subject currently being investigated by many worldwide organizations.

Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and consumer. Supply chain management coordinates and integrates these flows both within and among companies. One argument is that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed). SCM represents an effort by suppliers to develop and implement supply chains that are as efficient and economical as possible.

The effectiveness of management information depends on four characteristics:
1. Quality: The information must be accurate and reliable. If not, the solution of the problems will generate new problems.
2. Completeness: The information must be enough to allow the decision maker to make the right decision but not so much as to confuse the issue. Today, having excessive information rather than too little is a significant problem for business managers.
3. Timeliness: Managers can reach the information rapidly and on time. E-mail, instant messaging, and other social media tools make it possible for companies to hear about a problem immediately.
4. Relevance: Every decision maker needs a different variety of information. However, the problem is to have too much data by information systems.  ecision makers must be careful about the questions they ask to get the answers they need.

Business people generally use software for writing, manipulating numbers, filling and retrieving data, presenting information visually, communicating, and accounting. Today, many large and midsized companies have made capital investments in the enterprise systems. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, which is a form of integrated software, combines all of a company’s computerized functions into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database, allowing various departments to easily share information and communicate with each other.

Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) proposed the division of labor in which the production process was broken down into a series of small tasks, each performed by a different worker. The specialization of the workers on limited, repetitive tasks allowed them to become very proficient at those tasks and further encouraged the development of specialized machinery.

Lean production is the production of goods using less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment in tools, and less engineering time to develop a new product.
A company can be accepted as making lean production by continuously increasing its capacity to produce high quality goods while decreasing its need for resources. Lean
production is based on the premise that nothing will be produced until it is needed.

The flow process is a very common method of production. This type of process is used when the product is built up through many separated stages in a sequence. This production method is financially the most efficient and effective because there is less of a need for skilled workers.

Some of the important advantages of the job-shop process: Wide variety of products are produced; operators become more skilled; full potential of operators can be utilized; opportunity exists for creative methods and innovative ideas; and since machines are grouped, therefore supervision task becomes more effective.

Manufacturing engineers are required to achieve objectives to be competitive in a global context:
• Reduction in inventory
• Lower the cost of the product
• Reduce waste
• Improve quality
• Increase flexibility in manufacturing to achieve immediate and rapid response to
product changes, production changes, process changes, equipment changes and
the change of personnel.

Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer,
and consumer. Supply chain management coordinates and integrates these flows both within and among companies.

An extranet is a private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business’s information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company’s intranet that is extended to users outside the company. Some extranets can not be accessed by the general public.

Companies use operations support systems to maintain records and otherwise support operations and decisions at a nonstrategic level. Operations support systems produce a variety of information products for internal and external use; however, they do not emphasize the specific information products that can best be used by managers. Further processing by management information systems is usually required. The role of a company’s operations support systems is to process business transactions, control industrial processes, support enterprise communications and collaborations, and update corporate databases

Production is the transformation or conversion of a set of inputs, such as raw materials, labor, knowledge, into one or more outputs such as tables, cars, and banking services. The correct answer is A.

Goods can be inventoried. The correct answer is B.

Continuous flow process is usually used in process industries such as paper, chemicals, bulk foods, petroleum and water. The correct answer is C.

The job-shop process is used when a company manufactures several different products that require different types of processing and the processing for different products is performed in different sequences. The correct answer is D.

Cellular manufacturing is a process that produces families of parts within a single line or cell of machines operated by operators who work only within the line or the cell. The correct answer is E.

When there is a high level of customisation, low volume and one-of-a kind product like bridges or cargo airplanes, project processes are used. The correct answer is A.

Lean production emphasizes flexibility and quality. The correct answer is B.