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

SCM:
Supply Chain Management, or Single Chip Module.

SCOR:
Supply Chain Operations Reference model.

SCP:
Single Chip Package.

SCR:
Synchronised Customer Response.

Scrap Factor:
The percentage of ruined components created during the operation of a process. Note the adjective "ruined" - the implication of the term is that the process failed, either due to machine malfunction or operator error, rather than that the process is inherently incapable of producing 100% conforming output. It is said that a 10% scrap rat...

SDH:
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy.

Season:
In sales forecasting, a fixed known period such as the 12 months of the year or the 7 days of the week. Seasonality is important because, as we all know, the sales of certain goods are more pronounced at certain points in the season due to the cycle of weather, social holidays etc. Contrast a "cycle"and also remember Easter.

Seasonal Factors:
When applied to a season of one calendar year, ie a twelve month "season", the 12 seasonal factors are a set of twelve dimensionless numbers totalling 12.0, and therefore averaging 1.0. Each number is assigned to each of the months depending on the degree to which the phenomenon of seasonality affects it (eg weather). Thus suppose after a...

Seasonality:
The phenomenon whereby the period by period sales demand over a season assumes a pattern of rises and falls (highs and lows) depending only on the period in question. For example in a twelve month season, the demand for warm clothing is likely to be highest in the winter months of the year and lowest in the summer months. Seasonality is represente...

Sectional Picking:
See Picking (Zonal).

Security (of a stores/warehouse):
For a stores or warehouse, the building should be of substantial construction, with windows capable of being locked so as to be capable of resistance to forced entry. It should be laid out with a minimum number of access points to buildings, perhaps by reducing the number of extra doors which have been provided as amenities simply to cut staff wal...

Security Guards in the UK:
see SIA.

Security Watchdog:
A UK organisation based in Liphook, Hampshire providing advice relating to all matters concerning security, and which conducts on-site audits of company security arrangements ('Silver Fox'). Visit www.securitywatchdog.org.uk

Seiketso:
... means participating - see SSSSS.

Seiri:
.... clearing and removing clutter - see SSSSS.

Seiso:
.... means cleaning - see SSSSS.

Seiton:
.... means standardising locations - see SSSSS.

Selection:
In human resource management, the selection of a preferred applicant from those applying for a job vacancy within the company. Selection will involve the scrutiny of candidates' application forms, the conduct of interviews and, perhaps, the administration of tests of aptitude. Contrast recruitment (qv).

SEMA:
Storage Equipment Manufacturers' Association, a UK body (visit www.sema.org.uk). SEMA have 26 publications and "codes of practice" on racking safety and similar topics, and also hold courses on such subjects - contact via their web site, or phone 0121- 200-2100 (UK).

Semi Frozen Zone:
Also referred to as the trading zone - see Time Fence (2nd).

SEMI:
Semiconductor Equipment Materials International.

Sensei:
A Japanese word meaning an outside "master", or teacher, perhaps entering the factory to instruct in JIT/lean manufacturing techniques. Literally, a sensei is one who has gone before.

Sensitivity (of a scale):
see scale.

Service Facility:
See Queue (2)

Service Part:
Peferred, and often US, terminology for a spare ("If they were spare, we wouldn't have them").

Set Up Time:
The sum of internal set-up time (qv) and external set-up time (qv).

SFA:
Sales Force Automation.

SFC:
Shop Floor Control - the day to day management of that area in a factory where production itself takes place. Management (ie Control) activities include short term work scheduling; the deployment and general management of work operators; and seeing to the good order of equipment.

SFO:
Serious Fraud Office - in the UK, a division of Scotland Yard law enforcement. (Scotland Yard is the location of the Metropolitan (ie London) police HQ).

SFP:
single factor productivity - see productivity.

SGA:
Selling, General and Administrative expenses (a US acronym).

Shares (in a company):
on its foundation, a company issues and sells shares of ownership, the revenue from the sale yielding the capital it needs to to start the business and the share ownership of those purchasing them representing their investment in the company. There are two main types of share. (1) An ordinary share carries a vote at a shareholders' meeting and the...

Shelf Life:
The maximum time an item can be stored until it becomes unfit for use. The implication of unfit for use is that the item has physically deteriorated. In fact, many items which reside too long in the stores because of poor inventory control become scrap because the bill of materials has changed and they are no longer current!

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890):
An American Act of Congress prohibiting the operation of cartels and other arrangements in restriction of free trade.

Shewhart Control-Chart:
See control chart, variable control chart, attribute control chart, number percentage chart and u chart.

Shewhart, Walter (1891 - 1967):
The originator of statistical process control in 1924 at Bell Telephone Laboratories, NJ..

Shift:
A relay or change of workers organised to take over from others in the performance of certain duties - (OED) In manufacturing, a shift is the particular assembly of employees directed to work certain proscribed hours of the 24-hour day, such that the shift may be superseded by a following shift, of different workers, required to work ...

Shill Bidding:
a disreputable and, in the UK, illegal practice associated with auctions, including Ebay, in which the sellers of goods make offers for their own goods during the auction in order to boost the price.

Shipping Conference:
A group of shipping companies acting together and controlling the shipment of goods between two specified ports (eg Sydney and Vancouver, New York and Southampton). The conference operators act in collusion to fix prices (ie they constitute a cartel), basing charges on the value of the cargo. Conference operators take aggressive commercial action ...

Shitsuke:
.... means standardising work habits - see SSSSS.

Shockley, William:
The inventor of the transistor (1947), at Bell Laboratories.

Shojinka:
(Japanese) a lean term denoting variation of the production process so as to fit into changed demand patterns. Shojinka is encountered with nagara.

Shop Calendar:
Literally, a calendar in which the work days of the year are consecutively numbered without regard to month and ignoring/skipping weekends and public holidays. The shop calendar is useful in scheduling and tracking consecutive jobs over time. For example, on what date will a job be finished if it starts on February 22nd and has a leadtime of 33 day...

Shop Order:
A Works Order (qv).

Shop Packet:
the bundle of documents typically accompanying a shop floor manufacturing order, used for planning, authorisation and control. The packet may variously include: an official manufacturing order; an operations sheet; engineering blueprints; picking lists; move and inspection tickets; and so on.

Short Hedge:
A company that sells a commodity future is said to "go short" on the material concerned. If the company takes this action so as to protect the income it will eventually receive when the futures date is reached, the action is said to be a "hedge". See commodity and see future. Also, visit the "Investor Words" Internet ...

Shortage:
The unavailability of a quantity of component needed to manufacture a works order. It is rightly regarded as bad practice in manufacturing to release jobs onto the shop floor with shortages, since the incomplete kits disrupt current operations (ie the components, waiting for the missing parts, get in the way) and are often forgotten if the missing ...

Shortest Processing Time Rule:
See SPT.

Shrinkage Factor:
In manufacture, the percentage by which the actual output falls short of what it should theoretically be - see Scrap Factor and Yield. In retail, the shrinkage factor is stock written off due to its physical deterioration (ie becoming shop soiled), or lost due to its misplacement or due to its theft by shoppers and staff.

SIA:
(1) Semiconductor Industry Association (a US body); (2) Security Industry Authority - a UK body authorised since March 2006 to manage a licencing scheme for security guards. Licensing is mandatory. A licence may be either "Frontline" (for actual guards) or "Non-Front Line" (for managers etc). To qualify for a licence, a guard mu...

SIG:
Special Interest Group.

Sigma, Six:
Six sigma is a formal set of procedures that enables a company to put into effect the quality lessons taught at the shop floor level by Walter Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming. Six sigma is highly focussed on maximum financial return and the satisfaction of external customers. It is currently being widely applied to very great effect in the USA by l...

Sigma:
The Greek letter for "s", customarily used in statistics to denote the standard deviation of a distribution, qv.

Silicon Valley:
An amusing nickname for an area round Palo Alto, California, renowned for its conglomeration of hi-tech electronics companies. Palo Alto is near to Stamford University, a famous institution that was, at one time, America's leading academic centre in radio engineering.

Simulation:
The building and manipulation of a so-called computer model, usually to examine the potential behaviour or effectiveness of some development under consideration. A 'computer model' is a mathematical representation of whatever is being simulated, such as its speed or acceleration. Although the model is in reality a set of equations and rules incorp...

Simultaneous Engineering:
The design of a new product in parallel with the design of the process by which it is to be manufactured. Two advantages of designing the product and process in tandem are (1) the considerable shortening which results in the leadtime elapsing to the final product launch, and (2) the early detection made of any difficult production problems likely ...

Single Exponential Smoothing:
A naive method of forecasting (qv) in which greater weight is given to the most recent sales demand, and proportionally less weight to increasingly old demand. The exponential decline in the weighting applied may be, say, 0.2, so that the forecast is derived by (Latest Demand) x 0.2 + (Next Oldest Demand) x 0.2 x 0.2 + (Third Oldest Demand) x 0.2 ...

Single Factor Productivity:
see productivity.

Single Moving Average:
A naive method of forecasting (qv) in which a forecast is prepared by taking a simple average of a number of past data points - for example, if the past three demand quantities were 6, 7 and 5, the single moving average forecast is (6 + 7 + 5) / 3 = 6.0.

SIOP:
Sales. inventory and operations planning. synonymous with S&OP.

SIPOC Model:
SIPOC is an acronym for Suppliers; Inputs; Process; Outputs; Customer, as these phenomena relate to the overall business of a company. Sometimes the letter R is inserted, meaning Requirements (as they relate to Input and Output), to make the fuller term SIRPORC. The SIPOC or SIPORC model is intended to be a fairly high level map of the major proces...

SIV:
Signal Integrity Verification.

Six Sigma:
See Sigma, Six.

SKU ( Stock keeping unit):
A product qualified by the location at which it is stored. The term is widely used in distribution to enable the logistician to distinguish between identical items stored at different depots. Thus Electric Kettle Model A1 at Birmingham is a different SKU from Electric Kettle Model A1 at Manchester. The accepted pronunciation of SKU is as three sepa...

Slack Time Despatching Rule:
A shop floor prioritisation rule in which jobs are prioritised in accordance with: (the time due minus the time now) minus (the processing time still remaining). The greater the amount of slack time, the lower the relative priority.

Slack Time per Operation:
A shop floor prioritisation rule in which jobs are prioritised in accordance with their slack time (qv), but the slack time being divided by the number of operations remaining. (Each operation is an opportunity for delay.) The lower the Slack Time per Operation, the higher the job's priority.

Slack:
In the context of jobs on the shop floor, the extent to which the progress of a job is ahead of schedule.That is, the number of hours (or days) early it will be completed. In project management, slack is the difference between an activity's earliest start date and its latest possible (critical) start date; if the slack on an activity is zero, that...

SLICE:
Simple Low Cost Innovative Engine.

Sliced Bread:
Invented in 1927 by Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Iowa, US, and marketed from 1928 by the Chillicothe Baking Company Inc of Missouri, US. Within five years, sliced bread accounted for 80% of the US market.

SLOB:
Slow Moving and Obsolete Stock. See Stock (Slow Moving) and Stock (Obsolete).

Slotting
: the determination of the locations to be assigned to specific items in a fixed location storage facility.

SLS:
Selective Laser Sintering, or Sears Logistics Services.

Smart Label:
A term often used to describe an RFID tag. The tag comprises two, and possibly three, components: a silicon microprocessor, a lithium battery (optional) and an antenna. The antenna is able to pick up electric fields when the tag comes within range of an RFID interrogator (ie a tag reader). Smart labels are paper thin and able to survive very harsh...

SMART:
(1) Self Monitoring Analysis And Reporting Technology, and (2) Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, Trackable

SME:
Small to Medium Enterprise - a company having fewer than 250 (?) employees.

SMED:
Single Minute Exchange of Die - the three stage methodology devised by the late Shigeo Shingo to effect a machine changeover in a very short time. It was Shigeo's claim that any changeover could be reduced to 9 minutes or fewer (hence "single minute"). The two purposes of achieving very short machine changeovers are: (1) to reduce the mi...

Smith, Adam (1723 - 1790):
Author of the influential and world famous book, published in five volumes in 1776 An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The Wealth of Nations is held by many to be one of "the books that changed the world". It is readily available from Amazon, although an edited version might be easier going for the modern read...

SMME:
Small to Medium Manufacturing Enterprise (see SME).

Smoking, Passive:
In their campaign against smoking (ie active smoking - ie the smoking of tobacco by people), sanctimoneous zealots have claimed that so-called passive smoking (ie breathing in smoke in the air caused by active smokers) is medically harmful and have invented phony statistics to support their case. In 1998 and 2003, however, the results of two major...

SMT:
Surface Mount Technology.

SO:
Syllabus Order, an old term for a cost centre, qv..

SOA:
Semiconductor Optical Amplifier.

SOC:
Silicon On Chip.

SOGAT:
Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, a printing / newspaper trade union.

SOI:
Silicon On Insulator.

Sole Trader:
The appellation given to a person in business merely on his own account - for example: a plumber; a person who has set up as a printer; a person running a taxi or fleet of taxis. The implication is that the sole trader has not formed a limited company and that he is therefore personally responsible for the debts of his enterprise - for example, un...

SONET:
Synchronous Optical Network.

SOP:
(1) Sales Order Processing, or (2) Standard Operating Procedure. See also S&OP.

Soroptomy:
A single customer (and no prospect of new ones) served by many suppliers. That is, if the suppliers wish to sell, they must accept the customer's terms. The small number of supermarkets bullying and squeezing their suppliers are virtual soroptomists. As far as the poor consumer is concerned, the supermarkets are also virtual monopolists of the are...

Sources and Sinks:
Terms used in the operation of the transportation algorithm.

Sourcing:
The process of finding companies capable of supplying goods or services required by the buyer. Sources of information include: directories (for example Kompass and Kelly's); magazines; sales representatives; exhibitions; and the ubiquitous Internet. For a complete exposition on sourcing, see the free on-line 'course' on purchasing at this site.

South Sea Bubble:
A disastrous investment folly originating in London, culminating, in 1720, in the loss of considerable amounts of money by very many investors. As a result, parliament passed legislation requiring the flotation of any joint stock company to be approved prior to the issue of stock. Compared to some of the dot.com follies of 2000, the South Sea Bubb...

SOW:
Statement of Work.

Spare:
A manufactured component typically needed to replace a similar worn or broken component in a machine assembly. The sales demand for spares for 'wearing parts', such as exhaust pipes and tyres, are usually significant and can readily be forecast. The demand for spares for non-wearing parts (say, steering wheels and axles) often assume intermittent ...

Spares for Discontinued Machines:
See All Time Supply.

SPC:
See Statistical Process Control, qv.

Special Causes of Variation:
A cause of variation in output from a manufacturing process or system of procedures may not be due to the inherent operation of the process or system itself (see Common Causes). Instead, it may be due to the intrusion into the system of a one-off external cause of variation. One-off causes do not spring from the system, and so are preventable - ie ...

Specific Goods:
Goods individually and specifically identified and agreed to be bought or sold, at the time a contract is made. Thus a machine tool identified by its serial number is a specific good. A good being made to order but not yet complete is a specific future good. See also unascertained goods.

Speculator:
A trader in the futures market hoping to outperform the market by buying cheap and selling dear. Speculators have no direct interest whatsoever in the commodities, bonds and so on that they buy and sell. They are, however, absolutely essential to the market's operation since they keep it "liquid" and efficient. That is, someone wanting 1...

Split Batch:
When a shop floor job is behind schedule and some, but not all, of the components involved are very urgently needed in a next stage of production, the batch of components involved may be "split" - ie the urgently needed ones sent ahead and the remaining ones left behind to be processed at a later date. Unfortunately, the units left behind...