5M OF MANAGEMENT

Every production manager should know about  "5 M's "

Money: A Production Manager must know the value of every cent / paisa his operation is spending, is Value Added or Non Value added. One must keep control on rising costing every area of his plant, especially in repairs / maintenance and salary / wages.

Value Added activities: The activities customer is going to pay or where the nature / Characteristics or shape / Size of the RM changes. We can’t eliminate all NVA non value added activities (Like Quality Inspection) especially in the countries where salary driven work force is active

Man: Most of the managers will not agree with me if I will say “Right Workman" is a biggest and scarce input or we can say asset for any organization. One must take care of them to avoid employee turnover and should have a skill to read their body language at work and fulfil or pretend to fulfil their requirements.

Machine: Most of the companies promote their production or Maintenance managers to a Plant Manager Position but if you were not a one of them and came from commercial department, you must know minimum what machines we are using to produce out products.

You must know the utilities like compressors, boilers, chillers , DG sets , connected power etc. You can’t be a master in these things but you should know them by name and capacity just to bring confidence while talking in meeting about them.

Material: The key element after Man and money is the raw materials from which we get the end product. 

To get “QUALITY FINAL PRODUCT” one must process right quality raw material in a Right Quantity at a Right place with a Process Parameters.

Method: One must have proven methods written in a readable format which can be understood by all top to bottom staff for each and every process. Technical departments like production, Quality, Maintenance, Engineering and Service department may have different operating procedures generally called SOP. While commercial departments like Stores, Purchase, Accounts, Finance and HRD may have different procedures generally called as a Work Instructions.

Although the five M’s capture the essence of the major tasks of production management, control summarizes its single most important issue. The production manager must plan and control the process of production so that it moves smoothly at the required level of output while meeting cost and quality objectives.

 Process control has two purposes: first, to ensure that operations are performed according to plan, and second, to continuously monitor and evaluate the production plan to see if modifications can be devised to better meet cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, or other objectives. For example, when demand for a product is high enough to justify continuous production, the production level might need to be adjusted from time to time to address fluctuating demand or changes in a company’s market share. This is called the “production-smoothing” problem. When more than one product is involved, complex industrial engineering or operations research procedures are required to analyze the many factors that impinge on the problem.

Inventory Control is another important phase of production management. Inventories include raw materials, component parts, work in process, finished goods, packing and packaging materials, and general supplies. Although the effective use of financial resources is generally regarded as beyond the responsibility of production management, many manufacturing firms with large inventories (some accounting for more than 50 percent of total assets) usually hold production managers responsible for inventories. Successful inventory management, which involves the solution of the problem of which items to carry in inventory in various locations, is critical to a company’s competitive success. Not carrying an item can result in delays in getting needed parts or supplies, but carrying every item at every location can tie up huge amounts of capital and result in an accumulation of obsolete, unusable stock. Managers generally rely on mathematical models and computer systems developed by industrial engineers and operations researchers to handle the problems of inventory control.

To control manpower cost , managers must first measure the amount and type of work required to produce a product and then specify well-designed, efficient methods for accomplishing the necessary manufacturing tasks. The concepts of work measurement and time study introduced by Taylor and the Gilbreths, as well as incentive systems to motivate and reward high levels of worker output, are important tools in this area of management. In new operations particularly, it is important to anticipate human resource requirements and to translate them into recruiting and training programs so that a nucleus of appropriately skilled operators is available as production machinery and equipment are installed. Specialized groups responsible for support activities (such as equipment maintenance, plant services and production scheduling, and control activities) also need to be hired, trained, and properly equipped. This type of careful personnel planning reduces the chance that expensive capital equipment will stand idle and that effort, time, and materials will be wasted during start-up and regular operations.

The effective use and control of materials often involves investigations of the causes of scrap and waste; this, in turn, can lead to alternative materials and handling methods to improve the production process. The effective control of machinery and equipment depends on each machine’s suitability to its specific task, the degree of its utilization, the extent to which it is kept in optimum running condition, and the degree to which it can be mechanically or electronically controlled.