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

Dead Load:
Jargon for manufacturing orders not yet released to the shop floor.

Deadheading:
(1) The planning of load distribution such that a vehicle is to return to its originating site empty after the delivery of its load (compare backhaul and cabotage). The verb to deadhead is used to mean to convey a vehicle with an empty load. (2) The removing of dead flowers from a rose bush after they have bloomed.

Debenture:
A long term loan issued by a company and bearing a specified rate of interest and specified redemption date. A debenture is secured against the company's assets. Debenture holdings can be publically traded. A mortgage debenture is one in which the holder has preference over all other creditors.

Debit Card:
see Credit Card.

Debit:
A major term in financial accounting, a debit is a benefit that is received by others - ie it is the supply by us of a value to others. Examples are the supply by us of goods to our customer, or the payment by us of wages to our staff.

Decoder:
see wedge.

Decoupling (of demand and supply):
the building up of stock ahead of forecast demand. For example, manufacturing extra output in September in anticipation of large sales later at Christmas.

Deduct Point:
The point in the manufacturing process at which it is deemed, for financial and record keeping purposes, that all of the parts used in the manufacture are used up. That is, up to the deduct point, all starting materials are assumed to continue to exist; and after the deduct point, they are all assumed to have been used. Many deduct points can be c...

Deep Sea:
In transportation, ocean going shipping (in the US, Ocean Going.)

Defective Unit:
A part which fails or is otherwise unsatisfactory in actual use. The ISO definition of a defect is the non-fulfilment of a requirement related to an intended or specified use; advice is given to avoid the term, since it may seem to give non-quality people grounds for legal action (!) See Non-Conforming Unit.

Degrees of Freedom (df):
The "variance" (qv) of a group of numbers is a widely accepted way of expressing how spread out the numbers are in the group, and is denoted for n numbers by s SQUARED. The formula is s SQUARED = SUM ((x - xbar) SQUARED) / (n - 1), where xbar denotes the mean, or average, of the numbers in question. Thus since the mean of the three number...

Delinquent Order:
Sometimes used of a manufacturing order not yet received but which is past its due date.

Delivery (of Goods):
The transfer of goods from a carrier to a recipient, and of no legal significance except that the recipient has a duty to take reasonable care of them. ("Reasonable care" would include keeping goods out of the rain and preventing direct physical damage, but would not extend to storing them in special conditions, such as under refrigerati...

Delivery Note:
a document describing in general terms the contents of a delivery made by a supplier to customer. Associated with the delivery note is almost always an Order Number assigned by the buyer at the time the order is raised. See Delivery of Goods.

Delivery Timeliness:
A contract comprises conditions (its central points) and warranties (incidental points). In general, timeliness of the delivery of goods is generally regarded in commerce and legal convention as a warranty. If this is so, the contract cannot be terminated for late delivery, since, under the law of contract, a contract can be terminated only for br...

Delphi Forecasting:
(From the Oracle of Delphi, in Ancient Greece.) A means of preparing long-range forecasts, typically many years in the future, by canvassing and querying the opinions of experts. An organiser gathers the views of the experts, who initially submit forecasts without collusion. The experts are then brought together, and those with "extreme"...

DEM:
Dynamic Enterprise Modelling.

Demand (Dependent):
The demand for a part or component, the quantity concerned being derived or calculated by reference to the plans for a part higher in the bill of materials. Thus the demand for bicycle wheels is dependent, being derived by calculation directly from the plans to manufacture bicycles.

Demand (Independent):
The demand for a part (almost always a finished product or spare) which does not depend on plans elsewhere in the materials planning system. The demand for bicycles is independent, since it arises from the vagaries of the consumer market.

Demand (Latent):
Inherent demand for an existing product which has not been placed by potential customers, often because of a failure in the selling company to hold stock or a failure to provide a ready means of communication. Latent demand also persists when the customer is fobbed off by the supplier with substitutes that are accepted reluctantly. In demand forec...

Demand (Patent):
Sales demand which is made known to the selling company in the form of customer orders (contrast Demand (Latent)).

Demand (Sales):
The wish and ability of a customer to buy a particular good of specified physical qualities at the price offered for sale. Demand is patent if the customer makes his wish to buy known to the seller. It is latent if the customer is unable to place his order, perhaps because of inadequacies in the sales operation or insufficient stock. The seller mu...

Demand Forecasting:
Demand forecasting, also commonly but erroneously called sales forecasting, is the prediction of the future demand for products that will be placed by customers. Forecasts are prepared by the application of statistics to demand data. (See Demand (Sales)). The company should employ one of the many excellent software packages on the market * - calcu...

Demerit Chart:
A type of attribute control chart in which the undesirable quality attributes occurring in the samples of parts are each given a "score" according to its perceived severity (eg crack = 10 points, hole = 20 points etc.). See Quality Score Chart.

Deming Prize:
One of a small number of prizes related to quality, the Deming Prize being originally funded by royalties made available by the late W. Edwards Deming and administered in Japan by the JUSE. The Deming Prize is thought by many as being the premier quality prize worldwide, and immense prestige is gained by those winning it. Also see the red bead expe...

Demonstrated Capacity:
The work (in hours) able to be achieved at a work centre in a given period, so called because the figure should be arrived at by observation rather than, say, by theoretical calculation or by assumption. The late Oliver Wight suggested that the demonstrated capacity figure to use for a work centre should be the recorded output from the previous we...

Demurrage:
(literally, detention) When a ship arrives in port and is unable to unload because prior arrangements to do so have not been made, she must wait until a quay and facilities become free. The port authority will make a hefty charge to cover the time spent waiting in port. Demurrage is also relevant to wagons of goods held in railway sidings awaiting...

Department of Trade and Industry:
see DTI.

Dependent Demand:
See Demand (Dependent).

Depot (Logical):
In a distribution network, a "node" (qv) may be established purely for the purposes of planning and calculation, without any requirement for the holding of physical stock. An example is a major customer, regarded for planning and replenishment purposes as a logical depot on a par with the real, physical depots established throughout the ...

Depreciation:
When an asset is originally acquired, it is entered in the balance sheet at its purchase price (ie at its price as new), and is expected to have a life in use of a certain duration. As each year passes, one might say that as a consequence the asset becomes partly "used up" and that its value has declined from its previous value. In accoun...

Derivative:
A financial entity having a value arrived at from other financial entities. An example is a share in a unit trust fund - the share's value is derived from the value of the stocks and shares owned and managed by the unit trust fund's trustees.

DES:
Meaning 2 - Distributed Execution System.

Descendant:
from the viewpoint of the bill of materials, the descendants of a product are products at any later stages of manufacture. Thus if product A is used to make product B, product B is a descendant of A. In this case, where B is a direct descendant of A, product A is also said to be B's parent. However, if product B is later used to make product X, pr...

Design (of Product):
see "Product Design Specification" and "Conceptual Design".

Design of Experiments:
see DOE.

Design Review:
Design review is an essential recurring feature of engineering design management. At the centre of the review process must be constant reference to the Product Design Specification (qv), since the PDS defines the company's product development target.

Despatching Rule:
A means of calculating the order in which jobs waiting at a machine are to be loaded - ie a job priority rule. Typical rules are SPT, Critical Ratio, FCFS, FIFO and Slack Time.

Deterministic Model:
In creating a simulation, mathematical or other model of a set of procedures, such as one of a production scheduling situation, various parameters must be defined. Examples are rates of production; job leadtimes; and quantities of output achieved per unit of time. The model is said to be deterministic if the assumption is made that matters will pr...

DEUCE:
An early British computer developed by The English Electric Company in 1954.

DFA:
Design For Assembly.

DFAA:
Design For Automated Assembly.

DFL:
Demand Flow Leadership.

DFM:
Demand Flow Manufacturing, or Design for Manufacturability, or Demand Flow Management.

DFR:
design for realisation, where realisation is deployment in use (eg manufacture, assembly etc.).

DFS:
Distributed Factory System.

DFSS:
Design for Six Sigma, a methodology entailing rigorous data gathering to ensure that "the voice of the customer" is given highest prominence, and entailing also rigorous consideration of the intended process to ensure that output will be within the six sigma limits (ie that there will be a process capability index of 2.0 or better, and w...

DFT:
Demand Flow Technology.

DGR:
Daily Going Rate - a material's annual usage value divided by the number of working days.

DGSA:
Dangerous Goods Safety Awareness.

Dial-Up Access:
In relation to the Internet, connection to a service by dialling an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

DID:
Digital Image Decoding.

Differential:
In pay structures and grading, a differential is((maximum grade pay rate - minimum grade pay rate) / (minimum grade pay rate)) x 100%.

DIFPAK:
A collective waste compliance scheme involving the dairy industry - see Packaging Waste.

Dimension:
In the Hay System of job evaluation, a dimension is a subdivision of a Hay "factor" - see Hay Guide Chart.

Direct Cost:
See Cost (Direct).

Direct Costing:
Synonymous with Costing (Variable).

Directors' Report:
An appraisal of a business in the form of a statement prepared yearly and submitted as part of a company's annual return. The appraisal must give a "fair" view of the company's prospects and position.

Discount:
see the free on-line course on purchasing at this site (sub-section 4.3.3).

Discounted Cash Flow:
See DCF.

Discrepancy:
the difference between two measured values of the same quantity. Note that if the uncertainty in the first measurement is dx and the uncertainty in the second measurement is dy, the uncertainty in the discrepancy is (dx + dy).

Discrete Lot Size:
Synonymous with "lot-for-lot" - that is, the manufacture of precisely the number of units needed to satisfy net requirements, rather than the manufacture of a specified lot quantity which may be greater than the net requirements.

Distribution (Gamma):
A statistical distribution usually less skewed than the negative exponential distribution and which under certain circumstances can approach that of the normal distribution.

Distribution (Gaussian):
See Distribution (Normal).

Distribution (Normal):
Suppose that a succession of events occurs, each event capable of description by a single numeric value. One such example might be the occurrence of 48 successive forecast errors relating to a product over 4 years; another might be the recording of data relating to production output every hour over 5 days. Suppose next that we arrange the values s...

Distribution (Poisson):
A mathematical distribution of a group of variables which is not symmetrical like the normal distribution, but instead is skewed to the left. That is, with Poisson, the bulk of the variables are to the left of the median, or centre, value. A useful and unusual property of the Poisson distribution is that its standard deviation equals the square roo...

Distribution Mix:
The five most important factors needed to provide an effective distribution operation and provide for customer satisfaction in the distributor's service. The factors are: inventory; warehousing facilities; communications; packaging and transport.

Distribution Network:
The physical storage points, transport routes and means of communication by which (1) goods are conveyed to ultimate consumers, and (2) information about activity and requirements is gathered for central analysis. In its simplest form, the network will comprise a central source location, such as a factory, a small number of major regional warehouse...

Distribution Resource Planning:
See DRP.

Division of Labour:
see Manufacture of Pins.

DMAIC:
The essential six-step methodology by which Six Sigma (qv) quality improvements are effected. In six sigma, the acronym is spoken as a "word" thus: Deh-MAY-ihk (*). The individual letters stand for the following: D - Define (define and select the goals and scope of a project); M - Measure (measure the performance of the current process, ...

DNC
: Direct Numerical Control.

DNS:
Domain Name System - a naming/coding system used to identify computers connected to the Internet and to networks.

DOBO Docking System:
a proprietory docking system from Hormann, pertinent to high speed doors used in cold stores, whereby docking takes place before opening.

Dock Leveller:
a hinged bridge installed between the surface of a goods receiving or despatching dock and a vehicle to compensate for the difference in height between the two surfaces. Dock levellers automatically adjust in height as the height of the vehicle changes during the loading or unloading process. See the free on-line course on stores/warehouse operati...

Dock Receipt:
an internal stores or warehouse transaction that may be completed when goods have been received from a supplier but not yet "put away" into their eventual storage location. The dock receipt holds the id of the material and states its location merely as the company's receiving dock. The quantity received is shown on the stock record, alon...

Dodge-Romig:
See Sampling Tables (Dodge-Romig).

DOE:
(1) Department of Energy (US Government). (2) Design of Experiments - the name given to the methodology for examining the simultaneous effect of two or more factors on a particular system. The reaction of the system is termed its response, and is manifest in the form of a response variable. An experiment is an investigation of the behaviour of a sy...

Dogs:
A humorous marketing term for products on the selling range with low market share and low market growth (see also Cash Cows).

Double Entry Bookkeeping:
A formal accounting method following the principles of the Accounting Equation (qv).

Double Exponential Smoothing:
See Linear Exponential Smoothing.

Double Sampling:
The inspection of a first sample of size n1 and then the taking of one of three courses of action: (1) accepting the incoming lot at once if the number of non conforming items is less than or equal to the acceptance plan number c1; (2) rejecting the incoming lot at once if the number of non conforming items is greater than the acceptance number c2...

Downdate:
a jocular term that is a play on the verb update, and meaning to change a numeric value to a lower value (eg to downdate the proposed manufacturing quantity of 100 units to 60 units). The verb is principally used in closed-loop MRP when the production expected from a scheduled receipt is reported as having been achieved - the stock quantity is upda...

Downtime:
The period of time a machine is not being used. (The implication is usually that the shop floor would wish to have used the machine, but was unable to do so because of its malfunction.)

DPU:
Defects per Unit. See u-chart.

Dr:
Debit or debtor (qv) - the left hand side of an account (UK, not US).

Draft:
There are numerous alternative meanings of this term. One of them is "an instrument signed by a drawer to a drawee requesting payment at a future time either by a third party or by the drawee". Hence sight draft = a draft payable on demand, time draft = a draft payable at a specified time in the future and date draft = a draft that matur...

DRAM:
Dynamic Random Access Memory.

DRPII (Fair Shares, or Lean DRP):
A procedure devised by R. G. Brown for the replenishment of a distribution network. The steps involved are: (1) determining which SKUs in the network will shortly reach critical levels of stock; (2) notionally allocating stock held at the centre to fulfil the potential shortages; and (3) authorising actual despatches of allocated stock in a conven...

Drum, Buffer, Rope:
The often extravagent, or at least picturesque, language of OPT (qv) invokes the analogy of drum, buffer, rope as follows. If a supply chain or manufacturing route has a point which is bottlenecked, the output from the bottleneck determines the output from the supply chain itself. The bottleneck is the drum beat of the system. The bottleneck must ...

DSC:
Digital Still Camera.

DSEAR:
Dangerous Substances And Exposives Regulations (2002).

DSIR:
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, a UK government body.

DSO:
Days Sales Outstanding (or Distinguished Service Order, a UK military decoration).

DSOM:
Distributed System Object Module.

DTI:
the Department of Trade and Industry, a former* UK government department of state with many diverse responsibilities relating to industry, such as energy policy, employment, industrial competiveness and economic growth, productivity, mergers and acquisitions, health & safety law, and so on. Many of the responsibilities of the DTI overlapped wi...

DTP:
Desk Top Publishing (eg through the Quark Express Software), or Distributed Transaction Processing.

Due Date:
See Date (Due).

Dummy Variables:
In the forecasting of a product's sales, dummy variables can be employed to represent the occurrences of a specific event by setting up a time-series for the event in question. The data recorded for each month in the time-series is simply either the value 0 or the value 1. If "1" is recorded, the event to which the dummy variable refers ...

Dunnage:
any material such as boards, blocks, metal or cardboard supports used externally to support or secure products and packages in storage or under transportation in order to protect them from physical damage or to assist in their handling. The term 'dunnage' is also used to refer to purely filler material used as loose packaging, such as foam, bubble...