Batch Production, Job Production and Flow Production

• Production transforms resources into goods/services to satisfy consumer needs and wants.
• Examples include baking bread, assembling laptops, dental procedures, and taxi services.

Job Production

• Involves completing one product from start to finish before starting the next.
• Each item tends to be unique.
• Appropriate for small or 'one-off' orders.
• Examples include constructing office blocks, making wedding dresses, creating wills, and designing adverts.
• Best suited when demand is relatively low.

Batch Production

• A business makes a number (a batch) of products to the same design or specification
• Production then is changed to another product with different specifications
• Used when demand grows and multiple units are ordered.
• Production is divided into a number of operations or processes.
• Common in engineering, clothing, and food processing.
• Larger production runs tend to lower the unit or average cost of production.

Flow Production

• Suitable for businesses selling large quantities into a mass market.
• Results in lower unit costs via continuous, sequential operations.
• Products move from one operation to the next, often on a conveyor belt.
• Key features of flow production:
  • Producing large quantities.
  • Making a standardised product.
  • Employing a semi-skilled workforce specialized in one operation only.
  • Extensive use of machinery and equipment.
• Used in manufacturing newspapers, food, and cement.
• Repetitive flow production involves manufacturing large numbers of the same product (e.g., plastic toy parts, metal cans).
• Process production, a type of flow production used in industries like oil and chemical, refines materials through a series of processes (e.g., refining crude oil into petrol).