Production Processes
What Is Production?
Production is how a business turns raw materials, time and effort into something a customer will pay for. The method a business picks shapes its costs, its speed and the kind of products it can offer. A bespoke furniture maker in Yorkshire and Nissan’s Sunderland car plant both ‘make things’ — but their production methods could hardly be more different.
For this unit, you need to know two methods of production — job and flow — plus two ways of making production more efficient: lean production and just in time (JIT). Each method suits a different kind of business, and the wrong choice can sink profits.
Job production makes one-off, customised items. Flow production makes huge volumes of identical items on a continuous line. Lean production is a mindset applied on top — cutting waste to squeeze more output from the same inputs.
Job Production
Job production means making one product at a time, usually to a customer’s exact order. A bespoke furniture maker building a dining table for a specific customer, a wedding photographer, a hairdresser or a small sign-writing workshop all use job production. Each ‘job’ is different.
Because every item is unique, prices are usually high and workers need broad skills. Quality can be outstanding — customers pay a premium for something built just for them. The downside is slow output. You cannot make a thousand bespoke wardrobes in a day, no matter how hard you try.
Job production works when the customer wants something personal, when volumes are low, or when the product is complex and skilled — think bespoke tailoring on Savile Row, handmade guitars, a architect-designed extension or a one-off cake from a local baker. The higher unit price covers the slower speed and the skilled labour. It is the wrong choice for a product where buyers care about price, not personalisation — you would not use job production to make tins of baked beans.
Flow Production
Flow production moves the product continuously along an assembly line. Each worker or machine does one specific task, over and over, before passing the part on. Nissan’s Sunderland plant, Heinz’s bean-canning lines and Cadbury’s chocolate factories all run flow production.
Flow production thrives on scale. By making huge volumes of an identical product, economies of scale pull the average cost of each unit down. The trade-off: it only works for products where demand is huge and standardised. Breakdowns on the line are expensive because the whole factory grinds to a halt. And workers doing the same bolt-tightening task all shift can become bored, which hurts quality and retention.
Flow production produces at a low cost per unit but has a very high set-up cost. The Nissan Sunderland plant produced its ten-millionth car in 2019 — no job-production workshop could approach that scale.
Lean Production
Lean production is not a separate method so much as a mindset layered on top of job or flow production. Developed by Toyota in Japan, it attacks waste at every stage — waste of time, materials, space, movement and stock. Less waste means lower costs and faster delivery without losing quality.
Toyota’s Derbyshire plant at Burnaston was built around lean thinking. Workers can stop the line if they spot a defect, which prevents faulty cars travelling further down the process. Tools and parts are placed exactly where workers need them so no time is wasted fetching. Stock is kept to the absolute minimum.
Just In Time (JIT)
Just in time (JIT) is the best-known lean technique. Suppliers deliver parts directly to the assembly line moments before they are needed — not days in advance. Nissan Sunderland uses JIT: seats, dashboards and glass are delivered in the exact sequence the cars need them, hour by hour.
The benefits are huge. The business needs far less warehouse space, ties up less cash in stock, and damaged or obsolete parts almost disappear. But JIT is fragile. A strike at a supplier, a ferry delay or a snowstorm can stop production within hours because there is no buffer stock to fall back on. Many UK manufacturers had their JIT supply chains tested after Brexit border delays and during the 2021 semiconductor shortage.
Other lean techniques include kaizen (continuous small improvements suggested by shop-floor workers), 5S (sort, set, shine, standardise, sustain — a workplace-tidiness method that saves time), and cell production (grouping workers into small teams that finish a whole section rather than one repeated task). Each one chases the same goal: cut waste, lift quality, speed up output.
Lean is not only for factories. Pret A Manger uses lean ideas in its sandwich-making — ingredients are prepared each morning to forecast demand, and anything unsold by the end of the day is given to charity rather than warehoused. The waste-cutting principle is the same.
Choosing a Method
There is no ‘best’ production method — only the best fit for the business. A start-up making bespoke cakes cannot afford flow production’s set-up costs and does not need its scale. A global crisp manufacturer cannot meet demand with job production. The decision turns on volume, the customer’s willingness to pay for customisation, the skills of the workforce and how much capital the business can invest up front.