Operations

ABC classification	Classification of inventory into three groups: an A group comprising items with a large dollar volume; a B group comprising items with moderate volume and moderate dollar volume; and a C group comprising items with a large volume and small dollar volume.
Activity charts	A graphic tool to analyze and time the small, physical actions of worker and machine in performing a routine, repetitive, worker-machine task so that idle time can be identified.
Available quantity	The quantity of an item expected to be: available at the end of a time period to meet requirements in succeeding periods. Calculated as scheduled receipts plus planned order receipts minus gross requirements for the period, plus amounts available from the previous period. B
Batch production	American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) defines batch production as a form of manufacturing in which the job pass through the functional departments in lots or batches and each lot may have a different routing define batch production. It is characterized by the manufacture of limited number of products produced at regular intervals and stocked awaiting sales.
Bill of materials	A document describing the details of an item’s product build-up, including all component items, their build-up sequence, the quantity needed for each, and the work centers that perform the buildup sequence.
Buffer stock	Inventories to protect against the effects of unusual product demand and uncertain lead-time.
Capacity	A facility’s maximum productive capability, usually expressed as volume of output per period of time.
Central limit theorem	A statistical hypothesis that the sampling distribution approaches normality as the size of the samples increases, regardless of the distribution of the measurements of individual sample units.
Critical path	In PERT, a path whose activities are expected to consume the most time.
Decision tree	A diagram used to structure and analyze a decision problem; a systematic, sequential laying out of decision points, alternatives, and chance events.
Delphi technique	A qualitative forecasting technique in which a panel of experts working separately and not meeting, arrive at a consensus through the summarizing of ideas by a skilled coordinator.
Economic life	Length of time an asset is useful.
Factor ratings	A decision procedure in which each alternative is rated according to each factor relevant to the decision, and each factor is weighted according to importance.
Flow diagram	Flow Diagram is a drawing, of the working area, showing the location of the various activities identified by their numbered symbols and are associated with particular flow process chart either man type or machine type.
Gantt chart	A bar chart showing the relationship of project activities in time.
Gantt scheduling chart	A graph showing the time requirements of waiting jobs; scheduled for production at machines and work centers.
Governmental industrial planning	Activities of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry that formulate industrial policy and determine the patterns of future growth and decline among the various industries, comprising the Japanese economy.
Homogeneous resources	Resources for which units supplied by one source are qualitatively equivalent to units supplied by any other source.
Inputs	Labor, capital, land, or management resources changed by a conversion process into goods or services.
Inventory control	Activities that maintain stock keeping items at desired levels.
Just-in-time (JIT)	A manufacturing system whose goal it is to optimize processes and procedures by continuously pursuing waste reduction.
Lead-time	The time passing between ordering and receiving goods.
Material handling	Haynes defines ‘Material handling embraces the basic operations in connection with the movement of bulk, packaged and individual products in a semi-solid or solid state by means of gravity manually or power-actuated equipment and within the limits of individual producing, fabricating, processing or service establishment’.
Operation chart	A graphic tool to analyze and time elementary motions of the right and left hand in performing a routine, repetitive task.
Stepping stone procedure	An algorithm of the transportation method of linear programming that uses a set of occupied cells to evaluate the effect on costs if an empty cell was to become occupied. Stochastic model: A model in which variable values are probabilistic.