Which of the following businesses would be least likely to use an intermittent process?

Processes fall into four different categories for operations management based on the nature of their function. Some processes relate primarily to a product’s cost structure; others address the company’s product standardization needs, output volume, or production flexibility. Take a look at processes that focus on these types of business considerations and review general guidelines on how to best select a process to meet the requirements of your product.

Before you dive into classifying a process, consider the nature of the product it’s intended to produce. After all, creating a unique item, such as an interstate highway bridge, is wildly different from producing a million bottles of contact-lens solution or thousands of socks in two different colors. Here are common process classifications, arranged according to fixed costs (lowest to highest):

• Projects: These generally result in an output of one. Examples include constructing a building or catering a party. Although the result of a project is one deliverable, the process of creating the item can be duplicated with modifications for other projects.

• Job shops: This type of process produces small batches of many different products. Each batch is usually customized to a specific customer order, and each product may require different steps and processing times. Examples of job shop products include a bakery that specializes in baking and decorating wedding cakes, each one customized for a bride, or a programmer that creates customized websites for his clients.

• Batch shops: These produce periodic batches of the same product. Batch shops can produce different products, but typically all the products they produce follow the same process flow.

  A facility producing shirts of different sizes and colors or a bakery preparing different flavors of cakes or types of cookies are examples of batch shops. These processes make one type of shirt or cookie in a batch and then switch to a different type, but all types follow the same flow.

  Batch shops usually require some setup time — time required to prepare resources to produce a different type of product.

• Flow lines: This type of process consists of essentially independent stations that produce the same or very similar parts. Each part follows the same process throughout the process. Output on a flow line is dictated by the bottleneck, or the slowest operation. The flow line is similar to the assembly line but the parts don’t move at a constant rate dictated by the line speed.

  The terms flow lines and batch shop process are often erroneously used interchangeably.

• Assembly lines: These produce discrete parts flowing at controlled rates through a well-defined process. The line moves the parts to the resources, and each resource must complete its task before the line moves on. This requires a balanced line, meaning that each operation completes its task in a similar amount of time. The line moves at the speed of the slowest operation, or bottleneck.

• Continuous flow processes: As the name implies, these processes produce items continuously, usually in a highly automated process. Examples include chemical plants, refineries, and electric generation facilities. A continuous flow process may have to run 24/7 because starting and stopping it is often difficult.

Take a look at where each process falls on the standardization, volume, and flexibility matrix for both products and services.