Contents
Introduction 4
Aylesford Newsprints UK 6
Operational Facilities 7
Global Presence 9
Manufacturing Process 10
Recycling 12
Social Responsibilities 13
Manufacturing Process – A Theoretical Understanding 13
Purchasing Practices 14
Management Control and Coordinating Function 15
Product and Service Management 16
Quality Management 17
Inventory Management 17
Logistics and Transportation Management 18
Facilities Management 19
Configuration Management 20
Distribution Channels 20
Analysis of Aylesford Newsprint Limited 21
Limitations of Aylesford and Recommendations 23
Conclusion 24
References 27
Description
The success of a manufacturing industry depends mainly on the external environment such as the demand for goods in the industry and the availability of raw materials required manufacturing the good. A manufacturing facility with the latest technology, equipment, expertise, is prerequisite for any manufacturing activity. There are too many factors that determine the success or otherwise of a manufacturing firm. A production process unit involves several operations such as purchase management, production management, quality management, facilities management, logistics, distribution channels, configuration management etc.. Manufacturing is quite an involved process that needs the coordination among all these departments. The manufacturing process starts from procurement of raw materials and processing the raw material to make a finished good. It is the technology that is of importance in the production process. If all other operations of a company are characterized by management skills and require highly managerial skills to carry out the tasks efficiently such as logistics management, the production process requires high degree of technical and engineering skills than mere management skills. Production is in the area of production process that all the engineering and scientific skills are applied to practice. If all other sections of a manufacturing industry can be thought of as purely managerial activities, production and quality control involve a lot of engineering and scientific activities than mere managerial activities. Aylesford has an efficient distributor system, but an online ordering system using payment gateways over the phone or emails. No doubt the company website has exhaustive information of the company and its products, online ordering system would add more brand value to the company. Therefore the paper recommends Aylesford to have an online transaction system to add more value to its already efficient offline ordering process.. The company can enhance the quality of all its operations by installing ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning software that enables integration of all the processes of the organization and brings them into a central database and central control system. The company can invest in such value addition which greatly integrates all the operations that were hitherto functioning individually. A software application such as ERP would greatly improve monitoring and control of processes thereby ensuring efficient operations.