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

Lot Number:
See Batch Number.

Lot Tolerance:
Synonymous with Limiting Quality Level (aka LQL).

Low Level Coding:
In the process of levelling the bill of materials (see Bill of Materials), it is very likely to be found that a given component contributes to the manufacture of two or more higher level products. It is quite possible that the component may be assigned to one particular level from the viewpoint of one of these higher components, but later in the p...

Lower Control Limit:
See Control Limit.

LQL:
See Limiting Quality Level.

LSE:
The London School of Economics.

LSI:
Large Scale Integration.

Ltd. :
initials indicating a private company incorporated with Limited liability, as opposed to Co.Ltd., a public limited company. (Shares in a private limited company have been subscribed to by private invitation; in a public limited company, invitations to subscribe have been issued to the public at large.) Compare LLP : Limited liability partnership)....

LTL:
Less Than Truckload.

Ma Bell:
synonymous with AT & T, qv.

Machine Capability:
Machine capability is calculated in the same way as process capability, but is intended to represent the capability of the machine in isolation, thus excluding such sources of variation as human operation, incoming material differences and changes in the environment (eg temperature). The data to calculate machine capability are thus gathered over ...

MAD:
Mean Absolute Deviation. A short-cut technique popularised in the 1950s because of the inability of computers in those days to calculate square roots, as required in the calculation of the standard deviation. The approximate relationship between the two measures is as follows: Standard Deviation = 1.25 x MAD. For example, to find the standard devi...

MADE:
Manufacturing Automation and Design Exploration (proprietary application software).

Madogiwazoku:
allegedly, Japanese for employees who have no job but have been retained nevertheless (ie in British parlance, on gardening leave).

Main Purpose Rule:
This rule applies in deciding whether an exclusion clause within a contract is or is not valid. Generally, a supplier's exclusion clause must be stated at the outset when the contract is formed. An exception to this exists if the buyer places repeated, regular orders, and becomes - or should become - well aware of the supplier's exclusion. A secon...

Maintenance (Autonomous):
see Autonomous Maintenance:

Maintenance (Breakdown):
see Breakdown Maintenance.

Maintenance (Corrective):
see Corrective Maintenance.

Maintenance (Predictive):
see Predictive Maintenance.

Maintenance (Preventive):
see Preventive Maintenance.

Maintenance of Tyres:
the stores manager should look out (a) for cracks and rust on the rim, which can lead to deflation and damage; (b) signs such as rusty marks indicating that the wheel is working loose on the axle (this is a major safety risk, and can damage the wheel or ruin the axle). The manager should also keep a record of tyre wear and damage, to help in tracin...

Maintenance Prevention:
that aspect of TPM related to how easily the design of equipment lends itself to maintenance - in a word, the machine's maintainability. A mistake in ensuring maintainability is permanent.

Make and Pack:
When production is followed immediately by a packing or bottling operation, without any intervening storage of the material just made, the joint planning of the production and packing presents considerable scheduling difficulties (see Co-Products). In continuous flow APS systems, much expertise has been put into dealing effectively with the proble...

Make to Order:
Many products required by customers are not held by the manufacturer in stock, but are made ab initio on receipt of the customer's order. The reasons may be the products' expense or degree of specialisation or their required customisation. One problem for the customer in ordering a product on this basis may be the possibility of its eventual late d...

Makespan:
somewhat out-of-date shop floor jargon for the time to process a set of jobs.

Manifest:
(noun) a list of a ship's cargo signed by the ship's master for use by customs officers (OED).

Manufacture of Pins:
In his momentous book "An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (commonly referred to merely as The Wealth of Nations, published in five volumes in 1776), Adam Smith famously points out in Chapter 1 that "one man alone could hardly make a single pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty". However,...

Manufacturing & Technology News:
A useful source of news items relating to manuacturing, geared mainly to US industry. To sign up to their e-mails, go to http//www.manufacturingnews/mailing list.html

Manufacturing Day Calendar:
See Shop Calendar.

Manufacturing Logic, The:
In the heyday of MRP in the 1980s, this term was used to subsume the following: the netting logic - the activity of subtracting stock on hand from gross requirements to determine net requirements; the exception logic - the determination of any rescheduling necessary to the current due dates of open and firm planned orders to new dates when arithme...

Marginal Costing:
Synonymous with Costing (Variable).

Market Demand:
See Demand Patent, and Demand Latent.

Market Pricing:
A qualitative job evaluation technique by which company jobs are directly graded by taking note of the rates of pay of seemingly comparable jobs offered by external companies (ie rates within the external market). Care must clearly be taken in market pricing to ensure that outside jobs really are comparable in content, rather than carrying merely ...

Market Research:
Market Research is the gathering and analysis of facts relating to the sale of goods. The activity first includes the investigation of markets themselves, such as the determination of their sizes and composition and the preferences of consumers within them. (A "market" might be defined as, say, "young couples with children", or...

Market Share:
If the total market demand for a product is 100%, the company's market share is as follows: (actual sales of the product) / (total market demand in units) x 100%. Market share is a vital indicator of a product's prospects - if market share is diminishing, it means that competitors' products are being preferred and chosen either by existing custome...

Marketing Concept:
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably ... definition published by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Marketing Mix:
(PPPP + S) In marketing, it is said that a customer looks for many different aspects of satisfaction in a product. These are (i) P (the inherent product itself ... is it useful and wanted), (ii) + P (price), (iii) + P (place ... how far does he have to go to lay hands on it), (iv) + P (promotion ... the product's aura), (v) + S (service ... does h...

Markgrafler:
a type of schwundgeld originating in July 2004 in Heitersheim, southwest Germany.

Markov Process (Markov Chain):
A mathematical treatment of a situation in which there is a possibility in a given period that a transition may occur from one state to another. In manufacturing, Markov chain theory assists in (1) manpower planning - the likelihood of staff promotions, or likelihood of staff resignations; and (2) in marketing - the likelihood of a consumer switch...

Mass Customisation:
A term given to two-level master scheduling, or assembly-to-order production. With mass customisation applied to products with many option variants on an otherwise basic structure, the option variants are master scheduled and the final unique configuration of the product is assembled to the customer's requirements from the chosen variants in a so-c...

Mass Production:
Production in high volumes - a somewhat outmoded term.

Master Black Belt:
An expert in charge of a number of black belts, in six sigma quality. At the technical level, the master black belt will be very knowledgeable about use of the more "difficult" procedures in the Six Sigma Analyse phase - DOE, ANOVA etc.. At the practical level, the MBB will give advice on team working and company politics.

Master Plan:
See Master Production Schedule.

Master Production Schedule:
A time phased schedule of plans to acquire (*) material that will thus be available to satisfy anticipated or actual customer demand. (* Acquisition of material will normally be by manufacture, of course, but could be simply the buying in of finished goods for direct resale.) Although there are a few exceptions, only end products are master schedu...

Master Schedule:
See Master Production Schedule.

Materials Costs:
In relation to product costing, materials costs are expenditures incurred relating to "things" such as raw materials, rather than costs relating to labour or expenses. Materials costs may be direct or indirect. Contrast "Labour Costs" and "Expenses".

Materials Management:
A composite term for all those procedures and actions which govern the manufacture of product and the disposition of inventory. Examples of procedures may include: master scheduling; materials planning; distribution; and others such as sales forecasting. In addition, materials management may include the setting of manufacturing lot quantities and ...

Materials Movement (Continuous):
Movement effected by towing mechanisms; powered conveyors; roller conveyors; and continuous propelling mechanisms (eg elevators).

Materials Movement (Discontinuous):
Movement effected by lifting equipment (winches, pulleys); mobile equipment (FLTs); stacker cranes; or order pickers.

Mathematical Programming:
A number of combinatorial optimisation techniques used extensively in very many applications throughout manufacturing industry to find "best", or optimal, solutions in the face of limited resources. In mathematical terms, "best", or optimal, means the maximisation or minimisation of a so-called objective function. The best know...

MBB:
In Six Sigma, a Master Black Belt (qv).

MBWA:
Management By Wandering (or Walking) Around - the management by the manufacturing manager of the actual production workplace, closely observing matters and taking note of control charts and other evidence as to the state of machines, set-up times, quality and so on. MBWA is associated with Just-in-Time environments, although it is clearly applicabl...

MC:
Mass Customisation, qv.

MCS:
Manufacturing Control System, or Multiple Constraint Synchronisation.

Mean Time to Failure (MTTF):
A critical measure of component reliability, estimated when a product is under design by consideration of its observed failure rate and the application of either the exponential distribution or the Weibull distribution to the probability of its survival. The MTTF is customarily denoted by the Greek letter theta, and is equal to 1/(failure rate).

Mechanistic:
When applied to human resources, an organisational structure defined by authority and command - see "hierarchy".

Media Research:
the conduct of market research in order to find which types of consumers read which magazines and newspapers, and watch which TV programmes. In the UK, consumers are classed by the JICARS classification (qv) into seven social groups as follows: (1) higher management and professional (eg directors, accountants); (2) lower managerial and professiona...

Memorandum of Association:
along with the articles of association (qv), one of the two key founding documents of a company, the memorandum showing the origin of the company's capital and setting out its name and trading objectives.

MEMS:
Micro-electronic mechanical system. A device incorporated in a sensor or actuator which converts a physical condition into an electronic system or into a data element. An example is an actuator which converts an electrical signal into a garage door opener. An RFID tag is not a MEMS device - the RFID signal needs a further device or system before p...

Merchandising:
The management of retail sales operations, encompassing such subjects as the layout of the stores or shop, ensuring the best mix of goods is available to buy, advertising displays, stock availability and facilities for actual purchase.

MES:
Manufacturing Execution System, a term that never quite made it, and intended to cover the area between general materials planning and the actual detailed scheduling on the shop floor. "MES" has probably been subsumed by the more popular acronym APS (qv).

Meta Heuristic:
An overall search strategy which guides the operation of a subordinate heuristic. The guiding principle of a meta-heuristic is usually derived from artificial intelligence studies (AI), mathematics, biological science or physics. For example, techniques borrowed from physics include observations and studies of "annealing" - the controlle...

Metrology:
The science of weights and measures, but a term more often used in relation to the practice and procedures in using measuring devices within industry and the problems associated them. See also Gauge R&R.

Mezzanine:
A low storey between two others, usually in general buildings between the ground floor and the storey above. A mezzanine floor has also been defined as "a raised platform independent of the host building structure, supported by steel columns". (Two further dictionary meanings are: (1) a small window that is less in height than breadth, a...

MHz:
Megahertz, or millions of cycles per second.

MIL STD 105E:
A military sampling table issued in 1989, and one of a family of such tables going back to 1942.

Military Sampling Tables:
Sampling tables originally devised in World War II in relation to the acceptance from suppliers of ordnance by the US Army.

Millihelen:
that degree of feminine beauty that will launch exactly one ship.

Min/Max System:
See Order Point System.

Minitab:
A long-establised and well regarded commercial statistical software package that has been found especially useful in the Data Analysis phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC procedure. Minitab is easy to use, powerful and reasonably priced - in the UK, phone 0124-7643-7500 (Coventry). Also visit http://www.minitab.com.

MIS:
Management Information System.

Misfeasance:
legal parlance often reserved for a breach of duty to a company committed by a director.

Misrepresentation (legal):
- a statement made by one party about some matter that induces another party to enter into a contract relating to the matter, even though the facts of the statement are not themselves directly incorporated in the contract. (For example, the supplier of a

Mistake (legal)
: A contract can be brought to an end due to a central mistake that is either (1) common to both parties; or (2) mutual, or (3) unilateral. Mistake here has a legal meaning: it never has the everyday meaning of misjudgment or lack of wisdom. First, let it be said that the old expression caveat emptor is a powerful argument in denying the claim that...

Mistake Proofing:
see Poka Yoke.

Mixed Integer Programming:
See Mathematical Programming.

MLC:
Multi Layer Ceramic.

MMS:
Materials Management System.

Mode (of Transport):
The general means by which transportation is to proceed - ie whether by road, rail, sea or inland waterway*. (* Inland waterways include canals and rivers, and constitute major freight carrying routes in continental Europe.) Multimodal means transport involving two or more different modes - for example, the transport of goods first by road to a po...

Mode:
The most frequently occurring value in a distribution. For example, if we take the ages in years of all pupils at The Manchester Grammar School, the most frequently occurring age may be 14 years - ie in this case,14 years is the mode. If two ages had the same frequency, say 14 years and 16 years, the population of pupils is said to be bi-modal wit...

Modular Bill of Materials:
The word "modular" means pertaining to a module, a module being an alternative term for an option. It would be confusing, however, to refer to a bill as optional, ie pertaining to an option. - hence the choice of the term modular. The modular bill of materials is a means of making clear which option types are available, and which variant...

Money Equation, The:
This famous equation is held to be central by the economics guru Milton Friedman and other economists who reject "Keynesianism". The Equation states MV = PT, where M is money quantity, V is velocity of circulation, P is price levels, and T is transactions.

Monopolies and Mergers Commission:
A body corporate based in the City of London which will examine any proposed merger between companies which may result in the merged companies having a market share of 40% or more of some product or service. The Commission is empowered to block any such merger it sees as being "against the public interest" - ie which it sees as creating a...

Monopoly:
The sole supplier of a good or service. Theoretically, the monopolist can dictate the price of what he sells, since there is no competition. In practice, he must be careful - the customer forced to pay an excessive price will seek substitutes or alternative paths of business - see the "Dynamic Market".

Monopsomy:
The market condition where there are many sellers of a good, but only one buyer. The situation arose in the "command economies" - ie the old defunct communist economies and others controlled by the state. A market condition with many sellers but few buyers is termed an oligopsomy. In the UK, a manufacturer of grocery products might belie...

Month (Calendar):
One of the twelve months of the year. If calendar months are used in time-series forecasting, an adjustment must be made to account for the different number of trading days in each one. For example, the average number of trading days in a month may be 26.1 (ie one twelfth of the total number of trading days in a particular year), so that a demand o...

Month (Costing):
Cost accountants may divide the year into 13 months of 4 weeks each, to avoid the problem described under Month (Calendar). A problem for those using the system, however, is that they must recognise that CP7 (cost period 7) is not July, but only part of the calendar month July.

Moore's Law:
Computer processing speed tends to double every 18 months.

MOS:
Metal Oxide Semiconductor.

Move Ticket:
A brief document authorising the movement of material on the shop floor, either to the next operation or into stock. A shop floor can be plagued by unauthorised materials movements, making it difficult to track jobs, and the insistence on move tickets is an attempt to mitigate the problem.

MPEG1:
Moving Pictures Expert Group 1. (A video file compression format used on Video CDs.)

mph:
miles per hour.

MPS:
See Master Production Schedule.

MRO:
See Stock (MRO).

MTBA:
Mean Time Between Assists.

MTO:
Make to Order, qv.

MTS:
Make to Stock.

MTTF:
See "Mean Time To Failure".

Multi Model Forecasting Systems:
Many proprietary forecasting packages, such as Demand Solutions, Focus Forecasting and Forecast Pro, consist of some 20 or 25 different forecasting techniques, or techniques with different parameters. All of the techniques and models are run each month in parallel. The forecast issued to the user is the one emanating from that technique or model w...

Multi Site Netting:
When one factory is responsible for the production of material M, and Material M is actually used at a second company factory site, it is necessary to formulate plans for the production of M by considering the net requirements at the second consuming site and the transit times between the two.