Production advantages and disadvantages

Question 1

Advantages and disadvantages of cell production

Answer 1

advantages
- becoming extremely good at the job you do in your cell
- greater efficiency (cells can quickly identify and fix production issues)
- faster production times

disadvantages
- repeating the same job can be boring and decrease motivation
- high training costs

Question 2

advantages and disadvantages of JIT

Answer 2

advantages
- reduces costs because a business does not have to pay for storage space for the stock
- having less stock reduces the risk of stock becoming out of date, damaged or wasted which saves money

disadvantages
- the business will not be able to meet demand if there is an unexpected change in demand because they don’t keep extra stock
- if suppliers fail to deliver on time, production can halt leading to delays and lost sales

Question 3

advantages and disadvantages of batch production

Answer 3

advantages
- its faster making products in batches because your not spending a lot of time and detail on one product at a time
- large volume of output is produced from batches
- easier for quality checks

disadvantages
- small batches can be expensive (fixed costs are spread over fewer units)
- potential for waste because if a batch has defects the whole group will need to be discarded, loosing money
- higher costs than flow because stopping and starting production can be inefficient

Question 4

advantages and disadvantages of flow production

Answer 4

advantages
- large quantities of products can be made
- economies of scale can be achieved as cost per unit will be low
- enables fast production

disadvantages
- expensive machinery and equipment needed to set up
- if a defect is detected the entire production line will need to be stopped

Question 5

advantages and disadvantages of job production

Answer 5

advantages
- High profit margins
- Employees may gain enjoyment from using their specialist skills
- Customers get exactly what they want

disadvantages
- Slow production
- Job production needs highly skilled workers so this means that it is expensive because highly skilled workers tend to be paid more