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Hello all, Marty here with Warehouse and operations as a career. I’m out on the East Coast of the U. S. this week. I’m enjoying the cooler weather, well, it’s a little cooler anyway. It’s been a hot summer across the nation this year.
So, I wanted to start off talking about
Production today. Wikipedia tells us that
production is a process of combining various
material inputs and immaterial inputs (plans
, know-how) in order to make something for
consumption (output). It is the act of creating
an output, a good or service which has value
and contributes to the utility of individuals.
Meriam Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/production states it as
a: the act or process of producing
b: the creation of utility especially the making of goods available for use
3: total output especially of a commodity or an industry
And if we check out Dictionary.com https://www.dictionary.com/browse/production reads the act of producing; creation; manufacture.
something that is produced, a product.
Economics. the creation of value; the producing of articles having exchange value.
In our world production and manufacturing are sometimes used as interchangeable and I don’t feel they should be. Anybody surprised that I have an opinion! Here’s a few thoughts and a couple of resources to help explain why I feel there different.
https://efinancemanagement.com/costing-terms/production-vs-manufacturing Manufacturing involves making a good by using labor, machine, raw materials and other resources. Production, on the other hand, means using resources to make anything useful for consumption.
And simply put – Manufacturing process must involve the use of men and machine. For production, the compulsory resource is men.
I like that statement. And a facility can house both Manufacturing and production. Take a facility that uses raw materials like plastics, small little beads and pellets and uses them to produce containers of all sorts. Raw materials, with people using machines to produce a value and then on to the production department where people take that produced item and print on it, mold it, and pack it for us the end user.
I’ve seen this one production operation where they order shelving and post products from all over. They stock like a bazillion different kinds of bars, inserts, colors etc. They then assemble them, in many different, I guess you’d say custom configurations, for their different accounts nationally. At any given time, they could have 40 assemblers, 5 unloaders, 2 receivers and maybe 6 or 7 forklift operators or order picker operators running around the warehouse. This facility has 6 to 8 trucks or containers coming and going on any given day.
Another production facility that comes to mind would be our smart phones. Some consider that as assembly, and yes, parts of the construction of the phone is on an assembly line, that is only one small department of the production process though. Think about the individual pieces being put together in other departments, the processors, plastics, wiring, and batteries being constructed. Then you’ll have the receiving department, putaway, replenishment, pickers, all these positions are internal. Unlike a distribution facility, these positions are serving the production departments. The customers or us end users come into play much later. One interesting aspect of a facility like this one could be that the distribution will probability take place at another facility all together. Whereas my first example incorporated their distribution, by means of a shipping department, underneath the same roof along with production!
The reason I had production facilities on my mind today was due to some bad advice I heard an individual receive from someone she looked up to, I feel the advice should have been explained a little better! Like I said, I’m traveling today and had a few bullet points put together on another topic but…well, I don’t like people being influenced without all the facts in hand. So, what happened was a young lady, with about 2 years of general utility work in a small warehouse environment. Think consignment shipping, something really small with some shipping and receiving duties. Anyway, she had been looking at job boards and advertisements and asked a gentleman, a friend I guess, if production or distribution positions were better! I feel that’s like asking if blue or green is the better color. Bad choice of colors, I know some of us are saying of course green is because it’s the color of money! It’s a preference, a passion, and although the two facilities are so different, many of the positions are quite similar.
A production warehouse will have a receiving or inbound department, receivers and they’ll be operating forklifts. Maybe not a defined putaway and replenishment system but the pallets will have to get moved and stored. Typically, a production facility will use pickers instead of order selectors and all that means in our industry is that it is an internal process. What is picked will be used in house to add to or produce something there. Electric pallet jacks will be utilized but will tend to be smaller, maybe only singles as less freight may have to be hauled greater distances. Sanitation department are just as important, sometimes more so due to clean rooms and clean environments.
I like the production industry. When I’m discussing manufacturing, production and distribution with a job seeker I try and give them not only a good descriptive orientation of each, but I want to discuss the different advancement opportunities with each as well.
Think about production for a minute. Typically, there are going to be several different specialized departments that could offer us challenges to learn. Of course, we’ll have most of the normal receiving and shipping positions along with the equipment operator jobs but think about the assembly areas. The engineering aspects of production. Becoming a machine operator, some of those extruder machines that’s used in production plants are massive. One thing I tend to notice about production is the shifts, or times worked. Not to say there is not overtime, sometimes even required or strongly suggested, but as a rule your shifts may be pretty much set. 8 to 5, 11 to 8 or 2 to 11, whatever, oh and sometimes the shifts are flexible, maybe Sun thru Thursday, or Tue thru Saturday or Wed to Sun. That’s hard to do in distribution because their hours are based on how many orders they have or how many customers ordered that day. Our production environments can set production goals based on the month maybe, we know what needs to be produced by the week.
The young lady reached out to me, I’ve known her for a while, and I shared my thoughts with her.
Here at WAOC we’ve talked so much about how you have to enjoy what you’re making a living at. We’re human, we will not struggle through life doing something that we hate doing or going to every day.
I really admired the approach to finding a new job, she was on a mission and a path. She had a plan!
She had identified 7 different companies in her target area. 3 distribution facilities and 4 production. She had gotten with her friends and relatives and found people that worked at 4 of them! All three of the DC’s and 1 of the production facilities. She felt like that had given her some great incite regarding her targets. She was able to discard one of the distribution facilities, too unorganized she said. She felt like she had asked the friend his opinion, and mine I guess, because she had only found information on 1 of the production operations. I suggested she check out reviews from employees on the major job boards, in my experience, people talk about bad situations online. Bad a lot more than good! She did just that and has applied at 3 of the 7 different companies.
She had a goal and made a plan.
I hope we enlightened each other today, maybe we know a little bit more about production than we did. Go to your browser and type in production vs manufacturing, you’ll pull up 100’s of great articles to read about. I’ve included several and the one’s I spoke of today in the show notes at warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and please send us any ideas for topics through email at host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com .
Until next week, give great advice, make a plan and be safe at work and at home!