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• Scale of production


  • Governs many decisions on how products are to be made
• Computer-controlled systems


  • Provide flexibility in responding to customers' requirements
• Pre-made elements of a product (hub-assemblies)


  • Can improve manufacturing efficiency
• One-off, bespoke production


  Unique, individually designed and manufactured products
• One-off, bespoke production


  • Luxury cruise ship
  • Chair for a physically disabled child
  • Wedding cake
  • Virtuoso player's violin
• One-off, bespoke production


  • Increased expense and more complex production due to individual client consultation and design work, more skilled workers being required, setting up individual manufacturing processes, fewer economies of scale (e.g. no bulk discount on materials)
• Batch production


  Efficient and cost-effective manufacture by using simultaneous manufacturing processes
• Batch production


  • Jigs, fixtures and CNC machines facilitate more accurate and faster production of parts
• Once the manufacturing set-up has been established, additional products can easily be made in batch production
• Mass/line production


  Division of labour, where workers carry out a single process in turn, is used to set up a highly organised manufacturing system that facilitates manufacturing products in large quantities
• Mass production


  • Robin Day PP chairs
  • Clothing
  • Mobile phones
  • TV
  • Ready meals
  • Ikea Billy bookcases
• When explaining an appropriate example of mass production, keep focused on key manufacturing points, such as the advantages of injection moulding, automated tube bending and integral fittings to produce bulk volumes. Don't be tempted to stray into listing individual design features, which are relevant to the design but not necessarily to the scale of production.
• Unit production systems (UPS)


  Efficient, organised and synchronised, computer-controlled overhead transport system that incorporates appropriate hanging carriers to convey the garment components between workstations, reducing handling operations, optimising labour and equipment use, and improving quality
• Quick response manufacturing (QRM)

  Manufacturing strategy for reducing lead-times, with rapid completion of the product design and development process, and creativity, quality and customer needs given high priority throughout the process
• Vertical in-house production (vertical integration)


  A company owns its own supply chain, minimising the need for external suppliers and reducing risk of components price increases, susceptibility to suppliers going out of business, and protecting brand and intellectual property rights, but can lead to reduced specialisation, increased administration, and reduced flexibility
• Efficient use of materials and the most appropriate selection of manufacturing methods are cost-effective and profitable for manufacturing
• Related sustainability issues are an increasingly important consideration in material cost, form, manufacturing processes and scale of production
• Specifications for the part or product being manufactured


  • Often dictate the material to be used
• Efficient use of materials

  • Dedicated software to plan how multiple parts for products can be economically nested in a piece of sheet material to minimise unusable off-cuts
  • Designing projects with the use of standard sizes of board, timber and other materials to avoid wastage and additional machining
  • Rotational or blow-moulded, one-piece, hollow, polymer toys that are inherently strong and use the minimum possible amount of material
  • I-beams and cellular beams (with large holes along the web) that are an economical, relatively lightweight and strong form of steel used for construction
  • Aluminium ladders that use a variety of extruded profiles to ensure they are lightweight while maintaining excellent resistance to bending
  • Modern furniture designs that employ lightweight, elastic steel or wood frames and suspended seats, rather than using traditional materials and labour-intensive upholstery methods
  • Glass bottles that have had the amount of raw material used reduced by more than 30 per cent since the 1980s by reducing their thickness
• Accuracy and uniformity of components


  • Essential for effective functioning and seamless integration with other design elements
• Accuracy and uniformity of components

  • Car engine parts must fit perfectly to function and to facilitate repair and maintenance
  • Flat pack furniture KD fitting holes must be aligned perfectly to facilitate construction
  • Lack of accuracy of material thickness of soft drinks bottles would result in incorrect capacity and the screw-top dimensions must be within tolerance to ensure an effective seal
• Automated machinery


  • Uses cams and levers to make millions of identical components such as screws, always making the same components, so the flexibility of CNC is unnecessary
• CNC machines


  • Used for flexible, automated production when a range of different parts may be required in a relatively short time
• One-off production


  Bespoke, labour-intensive, individually specified, and therefore expensive design and manufacture of single products
• Bulk production of larger quantities


  Automated manufacturing techniques become viable and bulk purchasing reduces material costs
• Bulk production


  • Ikea Billy bookcases
• One-off production


  • Bespoke hardwood bookcases
• CAD/CAM


  • Facilitates mass customisation of products such as sports shoes, computers and cars, which are ordered online to facilitate the incorporation of personal touches and individual specifications without the level of expense normally associated with bespoke products
• Just-in-time (JIT) manufacture


  Offers advantages in reducing lead-times
• Planning and control software

  • Used to organise complex manufacturing processes, providing instant overview of factory schedules and operations
• Barcodes and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags

  • Facilitate the reliable transfer of component and stock information by scanning, helping to reduce waste and improve the speed of response to changes in demand, and the integrated circuit in RFID tags also improves retail security
• Modular/cell production


  Manufacturing cells combine CNC machines, such as lathes, milling machines, drills and grinders, in a group that is programmed to carry out a sequence of operations
• Just-in-time (JIT) manufacture


  Organising the manufacture of products to order rather than for stockpiling in the hope of future sales
• Just-in-time (JIT) manufacture


  • Ideal for multiple configuration products, such as vehicles and computers
  • Used in situations such as fast food restaurants
• JIT implementation strategies


  1. Increased management and worker co-operation

  2. Regular feedback meetings

  3. Careful selection of suppliers, preferably close to the assembly plant

  4. Reduction of waste and stock

  5. Optimised layout of machinery

  6. Use of visual or electronic stock control systems
• Potential disadvantage of JIT

  Systems dependence on reliable suppliers and transport infrastructure
• In the 1960s the US motorcycle company Harley-Davidson adopted the JIT principles that had been initiated by Toyota in Japan
• Harley-Davidson found that too many stockpiled products (sometimes referred to as 'just in case' manufacture) were resulting in higher than necessary material costs, massive storage requirements, and damage and redundancy of stock
• JIT enabled Harley-Davidson to react flexibly to customers' requirements, which meant that motorcycles were manufactured only when an order was received
• Higher quality and a 'higher first time' approach followed on from the reduction of waste, continuous monitoring, manufacturing improvements and error-reduction strategies implemented on the production line