We've looked at these different types of processes. So going from project to continuous flow, let's take a look at the implications of each one of these in terms of what we care about from an operations strategy perspective. On the left most column, you have the features of each of these different process types. The first one is flow. Now in a project type, so if you're thinking about making a airplane that is being made at one spot instead of on an assembly line, there's pretty much no flow. Now if you think of a wedding that's being planned, there's no flow of activities. It's basically being done at one spot. You could be thinking of the construction of a bridge, a building. You could be thinking of an installation of a software for a particular company. Let's say you're installing ERP software for a particular company. You have to go to the site of the customer and install it. It's a project that's being done at the customer site. There's pretty much no flow. Moving through the different process types. Job shop, there's going to be jumbled flow. We saw that in some of the previous slides. On the other extreme you're going to have the assembly line and the continuous flow. The assembly line is going to have some connected flow. There may be some passing of things that is happening between different tasks, between different activities. Whereas in a continuous flow, it's going to be hard for you to even identify a discrete unit of that particular product. It's petroleum that's flowing through the pipes. It's fertilizer that's flowing through the pipes and going to the next step and getting done. In the end coming out in terms of bags or tankers that are being filled up. Second aspect, flexibility. We talked about this a little bit earlier. In terms of projects, you're going to have very high flexibility. You're going to be able to arrange that wedding for that particular customer based on different idiosyncrasies that they might have about how they want certain things to be done. That's going to be easier for you in a project. On an assembly line, the way it's going to be designed is it's not going to be designed to be very flexible. I'm jumping from the project all the way to the other end of the spectrum, the assembly line to make the contrast between these two. In an assembly line, you are going to set it up for making, for example, a certain type of car. In order to make a changeover from that one type of car to another, it's going to be difficult. It's a different matter that there are companies that are working on that, on trying to get the advantages of the assembly line and have flexibility at the same time. That's kind of pushing the boundaries. But in general, if you were to think of an assembly line, it's going to have low flexibility. Product types. Going with flexibility in case of a project, it's going to be a unique product. If you're installing ERP for a customer, you are taking care of their unique needs when you're installing that particular software for that customer. It's going to be very unique for that customer. On the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum, if you look at the assembly line, there are going to be few product types that are going to be made from that particular assembly line. The reason you have it in the assembly line is because these are products that require very similar activities being done in exactly the same sequence and in very similar ways. In a continuous flow kind of process, the product type is going to be one product that's going to be made from one process that has been set up for that particular product. Next, expansion. If you're talking about the project type of process configuration. Again, think of a wedding that is being planned or an ERP installation or taking care or developing a prototype for an airplane. The expansion of the activity is going to be gradual in the sense that you can add more resources little by little. You can add one more person. If there's more work that needs to be done for that wedding or that software implementation. You can bring in an extra expert when you need for developing that aircraft that you're trying to develop. On the other hand, when you think of the assembly line, the other extreme of this, expansion for an assembly line usually happens in chunks. If an assembly line is setup to make 10,000 parts a day. Going from 10,000 parts a day to 11,000 parts a day is going to be tough. You're not going to be able to add a little bit of capacity. The way that assembly line is going to be built, you might be able to go from 10,000 to maybe 15,000 or 20,000. It's going to be in chunks. Similarly, if you think about a continuous flow process, an oil refinery, or a company that's making fertilizer. The expansion has to be done in chunks. It's not going to be the addition of that little two percent extra that you want to get out of it. Let's take a look at the human skills that are needed for each of these different process types. In a project, you might have people who know different aspects of the project. You might need people with broad human skills, with broad skills that are dealing with what the project is doing. Or you might have very specialized skills and you might just bring them in for that particular activity and for their particular expertise that is going to have an impact on that activity. If you're talking about a prototype for a plane, you bring in an expert on the equipment that is being used for navigation. Then they do their job based on their expertise and they don't really pay attention to any of the other aspects of building the aircraft or the prototype for the aircraft. That would be a very specialized kind of skill. Or you might need some broad project management skills for the project manager who is managing the project, who has some sense of all the activities that are needed. Once you move on beyond that, again, it becomes a set of competencies going from broad to specialized. In a job shop, you'll need people who have broader skills. That's the advantage of a job shop that people are able to go through different departments and get things done. They are able to fill in when there are different needs for the different departments in a process, different activities in a process. On the other hand, if you're talking about an assembly line, you might think of a person who is specialized in doing that little task. If you are familiar with, for example, the movie Modern Times in which there was Charlie Chaplin. You're talking about Charlie Chaplin working on a very specific part of that assembly line. He's an expert in doing only that part and doesn't even know anything about what the next task is or the previous task is doing. That would be the extreme of specialization in terms of an assembly line configuration. You have very specialized skills. They may be very skills that do not need too much training when you're talking, when assembly line. For a continuous flow, you might have specialized skills that we specialize in a different sense. You might need experts who know how to assess if there's something that's going wrong with that petroleum refinery. You need specialized skills, but specialized from the point of view of being very educated in a particular area. It's less physical, more kind of intellectual skills that are being needed for a continuous flow kind of environment. Finally, volume, this should be an easy one to look at implications because the project is built. A project type of process configuration is put in place for making one unit at a time versus when you're talking about a assembly line or a continuous flow. These are meant to be high volume. These are meant to be making many, many products a minute, many, many products an hour, so many, many units of a product an hour. I should say not many products. In fact, they're quite the other extreme, they're making one type of product in very high volumes. An assembly line or a continuous flow is making one type of product in very high volumes.
