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Glossary of Manufacturing - Manufacturing terms Category: Agriculture and Industry Date & country: 27/04/2011, USA Words: 2096

Autonomous Maintenance:
The principal component of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance (qv)), since it may be said that shop floor workers have a unique knowledge of their machines. To make autonomous maintenance a reality, managers must be willing to give operators the freedom to make their own decisions about machine performance and machine adjustments, and must provide ...

AUV:
annual usage value, qv. See also DGR.

AV:
Audio Visual.

Availability (of a Machine):
usually defined as (loading time - down time) / loading time. Synonymous with uptime.

Available Hours:
The total time available at a work centre over a period of time (usually one week).

Available-to-Promise:
It is essential, if customer orders are to be delivered on the dates promised, that such orders do not exceed the company's commitment to future manufacture (ie do not exceed the company's declared master schedule. To ensure that this is so, a portion of the available master schedule effort is allocated to each customer order as it is accepted. Th...

Average Total Inspected:
see ATI.

Az:
A shorthand calculation used in SPC.

BAA:
Broad Agency Announcement.

Back Door Selling:
a common informal US purchasing term for the selling of goods or services to companies without their seeking competitive offers or bids.

Backflushing:
The practice of calculating the amounts of stock of components in an assembly area or on a shop floor by reference to three sources of data: (1) the original amounts known to have been delivered to assembly or to the shop floor; (2) the amounts of achieved production of finished work involving the use of the components; and (3) the Bill of Materia...

Backhaul:
In distribution, when a vehicle has delivered goods to an outlying point, it will be forced to return empty to its home base unless a customer can be found, near to the delivery point, who requires a load to be transported back (ie "backhauled") to the original base, or somewhere near it. Backhaul opportunities are always welcome in dist...

Backload:
The load carried in backhaul (qv).

Backlog:
In a make-to-order environment, those accepted customer orders on which work has not yet been started. In a make-to-stock environment, backlog may also mean accepted customer orders which have not been despatched. If the reason for their non-despatch is a shortage of stock, the backlog is also a backorder.

Backorders:
In a make-to-stock environment, customer orders still current but which have not been fulfilled because of a shortage of stock. The existence of backorders implies that customers are willing to allow their orders to stand until stock becomes available - ie that they do not cancel the orders and either go elsewhere or purchase substitute products. ...

Backscheduling:
calculation of the quantities and times of needed step-by-step materials manufacture by first starting with the quantity and time/date required of the final manufacture, and then working back in time to the various prior stages. MRP is a backwards scheduling system - the user specifies the dates required for master scheduled materials, and the sys...

Backwards Scheduling:
The creation of a schedule by assuming that planned production will be completed at the date in the future when the work is required to be ready, and then working backwards in time to the current day to find when work should start to meet this required date. MRP is a backwards scheduling system.

BACS:
Banks' Automated Clearing System - an interbank data exchange and communication system whereby a company may make direct payment to a supplier's bank account.

Bailor:
A party (such as a person or company) committing goods, known as "bailments", on trust to a "bailee", the bailee being contracted to do work on the goods so committed. Thus the bailor commits his jacket to a dry cleaner, the jacket being the bailment and the dry cleaner being the bailee. The contract (for the cleaning of the ja...

Baksheesh:
A word derived from Persian, and in the East having the innocent meaning of a tip or gratuity. To businessmen of the West, however, the word is used to mean a bribe (*) for business between a buyer and supplier. In most Third World countries, the giving of baksheesh is the norm of business, the amounts to be given and the methods of its payment be...

Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline:
The Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline was opened in 2006 between Azerbaijan and southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean, and is 1100 miles long. See Stock (Pipeline). The world's longest sub-marine pipeline at 750 miles is the Langeled gas pipeline, also opened in 2006, , from Nyhamna, Norway to Easington, Yorkshire (UK).

Balance Sheet:
A major financial statement required by law and good accounting practice to be completed and filed as part of a company's annual returns (along with the Profit and Loss Account, qv). The balance sheet shows the assets and liabilities of the company at the point in time it is struck - ie the financial year end. Since the capital value of the compan...

Balanced Scorecard, The (BSC):
An idea put forward by Robert Kaplan (*) and David Norton in their book of 1996 that organisational management within the company must take into account a complete range of sub-objectives, some of which may appear to be in conflict and some of which may be mutually reinforcing. A balance must be arrived at by weighing the conflicting requirements f...

BAM:
(1) Bottleneck Allocation Methodology, or (2) Business Activity Monitoring - the monitoring of key performance indicators, perhaps as a substitute for old-fashioned good management.

Bandwidth:
the capacity of a communication link, measured in bits per second.

Bank Bill:
see Bill of Exchange.

Bankrupcy:
A company cannot become "bankrupt": this term is reserved exclusively for private individuals, and comes about when a person's creditors successfully petition the Official Receiver (*). The Receiver will appoint a trustee, who is then responsible for investigating the person's assets. A bankrupt person is permitted to carry on a business,...

BAPI:
Business Application Programming Interface.

Bar Code:
One Dimensional (1D) bar codes are the familiar (*) representation of the individual characters and digits making up an item's code by a succession of vertical lines of varying thickness, the lines capable of being read and interpreted by a computer scanning device. There are numerous alternative 1D systems for representing an item's code. Example...

Barrel:
the customary unit of measure of oil and other petroleum products, being 42 US gallons (= 35 imperial gallons or 159 litres). There are approximately 7.33 barrels of crude oil per tonne.

Barter:
The exchange of goods for other goods, rather than for money. It is estimated that some 10 to 15%. of world trade is conducted in this way. Barter is especially likely to be encountered in trade between countries with "non convertible" currencies, these being currencies with no value outside their countries of origin.

Base Index:
A seasonal factor, used in forecasting (see Seasonal Factors).

Batch (Costing):
See Costing (Batch).

Batch (Order) Picking:
in stores and warehouse operations, picking the stock for two, or several, orders together, then accumulating the picked stock at a further location, in order to reduce the overall picking time, especially time spent travelling to the stock. See wave picking.

Batch (Split):
See Split Batch.

Batch Number:
A unique identification number assigned by production management to a specific, identifiable batch of production. Records of production are identified by batch number, and such records help if it becomes necessary to trace final material later (ie the fault that caused one unit of production to be defective may be present in all units in the batch...

Batch Progress Control:
Batch Progress Control is the name that has been given to a simple way of keeping track of a product's stock count, by keeping track of the stock of separate batches of the product as they are used up over time. Suppose two batches of material M are delivered, each batch comprising 1000 units. Stock of M is 2000 units in all, but two separate accou...

Batch Scale:
a multiplying factor, such as 1.62 or 0.78, applied to a normal product batch quantity and the normal quantities of the batch's material components, to adjust all such quantities to non-standard conditions. Thus the normal batch production quantity might be 1000kgs, but the plant manager may decide to make 1200kgs instead, employing a batch scale o...

Batch:
A quantity of material manufactured in a single production run.

Battle of the Forms (legal):
Where a purchase negotiation is not face-to-face, but conducted by post, the so-called Battle of the Forms might determine what constitutes an offer and what constitutes a counteroffer. The supplier offers to sell on his conditions, 'attached hereto', perhaps in the letter, hoping the contract will be set up on his own standard terms. The buyer 'a...

Bayesian Forecasting:
A powerful technique ideally suited to the manufacturing environment because of the rapidity of change of behaviour often present in product demand. The technique was derived in 1948 from Bayesian Statistics by Prof. David Champernowne and refined by Prof. Jeff Harrison and Colin Stevens. The method is mathematically highly complex, and relies on ...

Bayesian Statistics:
Bayesian statistics are experiential statistics. That is, they are based on experience and observation. The fundamental Bayseian formula relates a prior probability and a posterior probabability and can be stated as PRIOR PROBABILITY + OUTCOME = POSTERIOR PROBABILITY. To illustrate what is meant with an example, suppose we have equal numbers of tw...

BBC:
The British Broadcasting Corporation, founded as The British Broadcasting Company in 1922, and incorporated under royal charter as a state owned corporation, The British Broadcasing Corporation, in 1927 (limited TV transmissions commenced in 1932). The BBC does not carry commercial advertisements - it is almost entirely supported through a compuls...

BCS:
The British Computer Society - visit www.bcs.org.

BEAMA:
The Federation of British Electrotechnical and Allied Manufacturers' Association. This organisation is based in London, and provides a legal and commercial advice service to companies wishing to enter into contracts involving price adjustments (see CPA). The BEAMA maintains various indexes relating to inflation in the construction industry. The we...

Bear (also Bull and Stag):
A bear is stock exchange jargon for a trader on the stock market speculating that a share price will fall; a bull is jargon for a trader speculating on a price increase. A stag is a trader who subscribes to an initial public company flotation of shares with the intention of immediately selling his holding when the shares are later traded - ie the ...

Bearer Bonds:
Financial securities which are not registered under the names of particular holders, but where physical possession acts as proof of ownership. Bearer bonds are common in the US but unusual in the UK.

Bell Curve:
a popular term for the Normal, or Gaussian, distribtion, qv.

Benchmark Jobs:
One of the tasks required to be performed as a part of Reward Management (qv) is that of job evaluation. In evaluation, either by a quantitative system such as point-factor or by a qualitative system such as simple grading, certain company jobs may be regarded intuitively as absolutely typical of others. It will be believed that an in-depth analys...

Benchmark:
To an organisation seeking to improve its own "performance", benchmarks are quantitative measures of performance achieved by others, extolled as desirable targets to which it should aspire. Benchmarks are usually chosen from three sources: (1) internal operations (ie within a large corporation, other companies within that organisation); ...

BER:
Beyond Economic Repair (qv), or Bit Error Rate..

BERBOH:
British Examination and Registration Board in Occupational Hygiene.

BerkShare:
a type of schwundgeld devised by one Susan Witt, originating in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA, intended to support the town's local economy.

Berliner:
(1) an inhabitant of Berlin; (2) a type of sweet German pastry with a jam or marmalade filling; (3) a type of schwundgeld launched in February 2005 in Berlin; (4) a newspaper with a 'tabloid' format.

Beta Risk:
See Consumer's Risk (in sampling).

Beyond Economic Repair:
A tool or piece of equipment requiring repair, but where the cost of the repair necessary is estimated to be greater than X% of the cost of a new replacement. The percentage X is set by technical management. For example, if X = 80% and the cost of a replacement tool was

BGO:
blinding glimpse of the obvious.

Bhopal:
A city of 1.2m in north eastern India, within the state of Madhya Pradesh, and the location of the world's worst industrial accident, in the form of an escape of methyl isocyanate from storage tanks at the Union Carbide plant on December 3rd, 1984. It is estimated that over 5,000 people were killed, many in great agony, and that as many again were...

Bi Modal:
See Mode.

Bias (in measurements):
see Accuracy.

BIC:
Best in Class (see BOB).

Big Bang Implementation:
A number of MRP consultants recommend that in developing a new system, the "cut over" (as they call it) to the new system from the old one should be undertaken over a very short time (a few days). The recommendation is risky and expensive - by contrast, see "Evolutionary Development".

Big Blue:
rather dated slang for IBM Corporation (blue is the company's preferred colour for advertising etc.).

Bill of Configurations:
Synonymous with Modular Bill of Materials (qv).

Bill of Events:
a critical path analysis - see PERT.

Bill of Exchange:
A bill of exchange is a key financial "instrument", or device, used for the exchange of money in international trade. It comprises a document signed by the drawer of the bill (ie the party originating it, such as the company buyer) ordering a payee (eg the buyer's bank) to pay a specified amount of money to a third party, the drawee (eg ...

Bill of Features and Options:
Synonymous with Modular Bill of Materials.

Bill of Imprest:
an order authorising a person to draw money in advance (OED).

Bill of Labour:
A structured listing resembling a bill of materials, but instead showing the standard work hours needed to produce all components in a key work centre.

Bill of Lading:
Expressed in shipping terms rather than in terms of air or road freight, a bill of lading is a memorandum issued by the captain of a vessel, on behalf of the distribution company responsible for the shipment of the goods he is carrying, stating that goods stowed on board are in (apparently) good condition. The memorandum acts as the acknowledgment...

Bill of Materials (Indented):
A list of the components in the bill of materials of a product, the list being set out diagrammatically such that the materials in each successively lower level of the bill are typographically indented increasingly far from the left-hand margin of the page. Thus "bicycle" is next to the left margin, "wheel" is next, half an inc...

Bill of Materials (Levelled):
The bill of materials (qv) can be pictured as a hierarchy of constituent products, with sales products at the "top", components lower down, then sub-components and finally raw materials. In the process industries, there may be as many as a dozen levels in the hierarchy. For the purposes of materials planning, it is necessary to determine...

Bill of Materials:
A single-level bill of materials, as the term is applied to a sales product or assembly, is a representation of that product and the immediate components of which it is composed. By "representation" is meant not only the identities of the components but the number of them which go to make it up (eg, for a bicycle, ... the components are ...

Bill of Quantities:
(hence the professional term quantity surveyor) A document which itemises the quantities of materials and required labour in a construction project. Quantities and labour are derived from design drawings used by contractors for tendering, progress reporting, effecting design variations, stage payments and so on to final commissioning and handover.

Bill of Resources:
A list or other representation of all critical plant resources needed to make an end-item. ("Critical" is usually taken to mean a resource known in the past to have been a trouble from the capacity viewpoint.) The bill of resources can be used in rough cut capacity planning to make a quick evaluation of the viability, from the capacity v...

Bin/Bin Card:
A bin is an old-fashioned term for a receptacle for holding stores stock. A bin card is, literally, a card kept within the bin, and on which the number of items present is inscribed, along with the dates and numbers of issues and receipts that have taken place. In effect, it is a manual stock record.

Binomial Distribution:
a theoretical frequency distribution having a close connection with the well known binomial expansion, the distibution being concerned with the relative probabilities of an event being "true" or "untrue".

BIOS:
Basic Input Output System.

BIS:
Bank of International Settlements, a consortium of the world's major central banks.

BIST:
Built-in Self Test.

Black Belt:
The leader of a project team (of green belts) in a Six Sigma project. Black belts need to be thoroughly versed in the Six Sigma methodology of DMAIC (qv), familiar with the statistical techniques encountered in the Analyse phase of DMAIC and in possession of qualities of leadership. On the appointment to a Black Belt position of a person of suitab...

Black Book (Little):
A humorous term for an imaginary small book supposedly containing a list of the jobs and dates which a foreman is working to. The jobs and dates are presumed to have been arrived at by the day-to-day pressures of work, by intuition and by other informal means - ie not arrived at via a formal planning system. The "little black book" is a ...

Black Swan:
(1) A variety of the genus swan, cygnus atratus, a beautiful bird native to Western Australia. (2) According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his highly accaimed book The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, a 'black swan' is Taleb's term (*) for an unusual, totally unexpected event that is a surprise that turns out to be of great importanc...

Blanket Order:
An order placed on a supplier for a raw material intended to cover the buying company's requirements for a considerable period of time (say, for 6 or 12 months). However, the material is not to be delivered in a single lot. Instead, the buyer will "call off" small amounts from the blanket order for individual delivery as and when he need...

Blow Through:
See Phantom Part.

BM:
Buffer Management.

BMC:
British Motor Corporation - a motor company formed from Austin Rover and Morris Motors in 1952 by an ill-advised merger encouraged by the then Labour Government, and which was subsequently not well served in its management and commercial performance. BMC marques included Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley and MG.

BNQP:
Baldridge National Quality Program (national = US).

BO:
Business Objective.

Board of Trade (BOT):
a UK government department founded in 1621 and now subsumed by the the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Also see: the DTI.

BOB:
Best of breed - usually software considered to be "the best" in its field (best at scheduling, best at forecasting, best at ...). In order to obtain the software functionality it requires, a company may prefer to purchase many individual BOB packages from diverse software suppliers, with the probable requirement then, of course, of swapp...

BOD:
Business Object Definition.

BOGOF:
Buy one, get one free. This retail offer not only stimulates demand, it temporarily shuts rival products out for longer.

BOH:
Balance On Hand.

Boilermakers' Society:
A former trade union representing the bulk of skilled workers in the steel trade.

BOK:
Body of knowledge - all that is known about a subject (referred to more elegantly by the Latin term the corpus).

Bonded Warehouse:
The colloquial term for an excise warehouse, this being a storage facility approved by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for the deposit of goods liable to excise duty (ie tax) without the payment of such duty having yet been made. The purpose of the bonded warehouse is so that payment can be postponed until the goods are remo...

Bonus Schemes:
When associated with shop floor work, especially as practised in the engineering job shop, a bonus scheme is intended to reward machine operators financially for achieving rates of production above average. Bonus schemes are often complex and very particular to a specific production environment. For example, management may believe that a rate of pr...

Book Debts:
in company accounts, cash sums owed to the company by customers.

Book of Prime Entry:
Synonymous with Journal (qv).