Shielding Production: Essential Step in Production Control

TLDR

Production control relies on work assignments as the unit of analysis, and their quality determines productivity in construction and engineering teams. Improving assignment quality by meeting soundness, sequence, and size criteria shields units from workflow uncertainty, boosts productivity, shortens task durations, and reduces overall project time by shrinking buffers.

Abstract

Effective production control systems are structured around the assignment as the unit of analysis. The quality of work assignments in production units such as construction crews and engineering squads is the key to production control and for determining production unit productivity. Research has revealed that the quality of assignments can be substantially improved by forming and selecting them to meet soundness, sequence, and size criteria. Quality assignments shield production units from work flow uncertainty, enabling those units to improve their own productivity, and also improve the productivity of the production units downstream. The associated reduction in task duration can shorten projects. Further reduction of project duration comes from shortening the buffers previously needed to accommodate flow uncertainty.