A production manager is a person who is in charge of the process of planning to coordinate and control the manufacturing process of a business. From production and quality assurance to deliver the products on time comes under the managing scope of the product manager. Below listed are the eight main responsibilities that are assigned to product managers.
01. Planning the production process
The first responsibility of the production manager is planning the product and the production process. The product it offers is the most important thing for the success of any business organization. Based on the organizational vision, mission, goals, and objectives, it has to decide what the business organization is going to offer to the market, how it is to be produced, and by what time it is to be produced.
The production manager has to initiate and lead this production planning process. The plan should be compatible with the production targets and sales forecasts of the organization and should have the ability to face the competition in the target market.
02. Production control
To achieve proper production planning, it is a must to have an effective system that can control the entire production process. A production control system is necessary to implement the production plan successfully. It is expected to complete the production process successfully, on time, and with the lowest possible costs. To achieve that, the implementation of proper production control is a must. Apart from that, a production control system ensures continuous production without any disturbances, fewer work-in-progress items, and minimum wastage by increasing productivity.
It is an important responsibility of the production manager to implement a production control system that is most suitable for production planning based on the nature of the product.
03. Quality Control
Apart from planning the product, quality is also a major concern of the manager who is in charge of the production process. It is mandatory to maintain the required quality of the product throughout the production process. Quality control is concerned with maintaining control over the negative variables of a product that can create an impact on the quality of the final product.
Since the quality of the product can create a huge impact when facing market competition, the managers should take all the necessary actions to make sure that the quality standards are maintained throughout the production process. Implementation of a total quality management system can be helpful in managing the overall quality of the production process.
04. Production method analysis
When manufacturing a product, usually there is more than one method available. Some methods are more economical while some have quality benefits. It can be recognized that each alternative has its own advantages and disadvantages.
However, it is a production manager’s responsibility to identify all the available production methods and analyze the advantages and disadvantages to decide the best and most profitable manufacturing methods for the product that can ensure a good quality product. This process of selecting the best method out of all the available alternatives is called the method of analysis. The best method should have the ability to minimize the cost of production while improving the productivity of the process.
05. Inventory control
Another important responsibility of a production manager is to exercise proper control over the inventory. It is his responsibility to analyze the production process and determine the economic order size, minimum, maximum, and average material levels. It should be done with a proper understanding of the production process and inventory consumption for the production in order to avoid overstocking or understocking inventories.
Maintaining proper inventory levels helps to increase the productivity of the production as well as to minimize the wastage of materials.
06. Layout of the plant
the production plant should be designed both internally and externally to cater to the purpose of easy implementing an easy production process, ensure the safety of the employees. Apart from that, it should make sure zero environmental pollution from any production activity. The plant layout should be designed in order to meet all these criteria and the available resources should be placed inside the plant to maximize the utilization and productivity of the process at a minimum operating cost.
07. Work measurement methods
Work measurement methods should be put in place to measure the performance level of the employees who are working in the production process. Time and motion studies techniques can be used for work measurement. If an employee works below the level fixed by work measurement techniques, the reason for underperformance should be identified and necessary actions should be taken to motivate and improve employee performance.