PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING

Company Products & Services

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING

CONTENTS

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING

PROCESS PRINCIPLES

Process management, as the term is commonly understood, is not the concern of this section any more than the management of selling, finance, technical or company investments; but the principles of physical processes must be a serious concern of top management in any business that produces or distributes physical products. For in every such business the ability to attain performance goals depends on the ability of physical processes to supply the products in the required time or with the required flexibility. In any processing enterprise, ability to produce physically has to be taken into account when setting business objectives. Management's job is always to push back the limitations set by the hard reality of physical process facts. It must so manage its business as to convert these physical limitations into opportunities for the industry.

There is, of course, nothing new in this. Yet traditionally management reacts to the physical limitations of physical processes by putting pressure on its process function: there are few areas in which 'management by drives' is as common. Furthermore physical process people themselves see the answer in a number of techniques and tools, ranging from machine design to industrial engineering.

Neither, however is the key. To push back the physical limitations or to convert them into opportunities requires first that management understand what system of physical processes its operations require and what the principles of that system are; and second that it apply these principles consistently and thoroughly. Physical process is not the application of tools to materials. It is the application of logic to work. The more clearly, the more consistently, the more rationally the right logic is applied, the less of a limitation and the more of an opportunity do ‘physical processes’ become.

Each system of physical processes makes its own demands on the management of the business - in all areas and on all levels. Each requires different competence, skill and performance. One set of demands is not necessarily 'higher' than another, any more than non-Euclidian geometry is higher than Euclidian geometry. Yet each is different, and unless management understands the demands of its system of physical processes, it will not manage well.

This is particularly important today when many businesses are moving from one system of physical processes into another. If this move is considered a mere matter of machines, techniques and gadgets; the business will inevitably reap only the difficulties of the new system which involves new principles, and one must understand what are these difficulties.

PHYSICAL SYSTEMS

There are three basic systems of physical processes:

     1)   Unique-product physical processes
     2)   Mass physical processes
     3)   Analogue physical processes

One may perhaps count four systems:

1.	Mass physical processes inflexible, that is, the physical processes of uniform products, is different from,
2.	Mass physical processes flexible, which supplies uniform components but assembles them into diversified products.
3.	Each of these systems has its own basic principles; and each makes specific demands on management.

 

There are two general rules for advancing physical processes performance and pushing back limitations:

1)

The limitations of physical processes are pushed back further and faster, the more consistently and thoroughly the principles pertaining to the system in use are applied.

2)

The systems themselves represent a distinct order of advance, with unique-product physical processes the most advanced. They represent different stages of control over physical limitations. This does not mean that opportunities for advance lie everywhere in moving from the unique-product system to the physical processes system. Each system has its specific applications, requirements and limitations. But it does mean that one advances to the extent to which one can organize components of physical processes on the principles of a more advanced system; and learn, at the same time, how to harmonies the two systems within the business.

There are also two general rules concerning the demands on management competence made by each system.

1)	The systems differ not just in the difficulty of their demands, but in the variety of competence and the order of performance. Management, in moving from one system to another, has to learn how to do new things rather than learn to do the old things better.
2)	The more we succeed in applying consistently the principles of each system, the easier it becomes for management to satisfy its demands.

Each management has to meet the demands of the system it ought to have according to the nature of its product and physical processes, rather than those of the system it actually has. Being unable or unwilling to apply what would be the most appropriate system only results in lack of performance; it does not result in lower demands on management. Indeed, it inevitably increases the difficulties of managing business.

One case in point is constant flow processing, which has (in the 'batch process') primarily a unique-product system. There is probably no section of industry that has worked harder or more successfully on perfecting a unique-product system. Yet the problems the managements of these companies face are all physical processes problems: high fixed capital requirements and the need for continuous physical processes resulting in high break-even points, the need for a high and constant level of business, the need to make basic investment decisions for a long time ahead, et cetera. At the same time these industry sectors enjoy few of the benefits of physical processes.

It is, in summary, of major importance in managing a business to know which system applies; to carry its principles through as far as possible; to find out which components of physical processes can be organized in a more advanced system and to organize them accordingly; to know what demands each system makes on management.

Furthermore where, as in the constant flow process industry sectors, historical and technological obstacles have barred the organization of physical processes in the appropriate system; it is a major challenge to management to work systematically on overcoming these obstacles. Indeed, emphasis in such a situation should not be given to working a little more effectively what is basically the wrong system. One is convinced that a great deal of the tremendous technological effort in the certain industries has been misdirected. Focused on improving the traditional process, it will turn out to have been wasted when processing will finally become a physical process; which is in all probability not too far off any more. A business using the wrong system has to satisfy all the demands that the appropriate and more advanced system would make on management, yet, it does not have the wherewithal to pay for them, for this can come only out of the increased ability to produce what the more advanced system provides.

What, then, concretely are these three systems of physical processes and their principles?


1. UNIQUE-PRODUCT PHYSICAL PROCESSES

In the first, the physical processing of a unique product, each product is self-contained. Of course, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as process unique products - they are produced only by the artist. But building an aircraft, a big turbine or a skyscraper comes close to turning out a unique product. So is the building of a house, and in most cases 'batch physical processes' in a job shop.

Under this system the basic principle is organization into homogeneous stages. In the building of the traditional single-family house (one of the simplest examples of unique product physical processes) we can distinguish four such stages. First, digging the foundation and pouring concrete for the foundation walls and the basement floor. Second, putting up the frame and the roof. Third, installing plumbing and wiring equipment in the inside walls. Finally, interior finishing. What makes each of these a distinct stage is that work on the house can stop after each is completed, without any damage - even for a fairly long time. On the other hand, within each stage, work has to be carried right through; or else what has been done already will be damaged and may even have to be done again. Each stage can be varied from house to house without too much trouble or adjustment and without delaying the next stage. Each of these stages by the inner logic of the product, that is, of the house, is an entity in itself.

Unique-product physical processes, with its organization of the work by homogeneous stages, is radically different from craft organization, in which a specialist does all the required work for his particular specialty. Properly organized, unique-product physical processes does not go by craft skills but by stage skills. The model is the telephone installation man who, without being a skilled electrician, carpenter, plumber or roofer, installs electric wiring, saws through boards, makes a ground connection and can take up a roof shingle and replace it. In other words, either every man engaged in the work of a particular stage must be able to do everything needed within that stage; or, as in the building of a big turbine, there must be an integrated team for each stage which contains within itself all the stage skills needed. No skills are needed by an individual or team that goes beyond the requirement of the particular stage.

This is largely how one succeeds in building ships at such a tremendous rate during wars. It was not mass physical processes that resulted in the unprecedented output of ships. It was the division of the work into homogeneous stages; the systematic organization of the work group for the specific requirements of each stage; and the systematic training of a large number of people to do all the work required within one stage. This in turn made possible the progressive scheduling of the work flow which was the greatest time saver.


2. MASS PHYSICAL PROCESSES INFLEXIBLE AND FLEXIBLE

Mass physical processes is the assembly of varied products - in large numbers or small - out of uniform and standardized components.

In most industries mass physical processes is today the prevailing system. It is, and with good reason, considered to be the typical system of an industrial society - though analogue physical processes may soon become a strong contender.

So universal is mass physical processes today that it might be assumed that we know all about it, certainly that we know all about its basic principles. This is far from true. After forty years we are only now beginning to understand what we should be doing. The reason for this is that the man who ushered in mass physical processes as a universal system misunderstood and misapplied it - so often the fate of the pioneer.

When Henry Ford allegedly said that 'the customer can have any color car as long as it's black', whether he said it or not, it was not a joking. It was meant to express the essence of mass physical processes as the manufacture of uniform products in large quantity. Of course, he knew that it would have been easy to give his customers a choice of colors; all that was needed was to give the painter at the end of the assembly line three or four spray guns instead of one. But Ford also realized, rightly, that the uniformity of the product would soon be gone altogether once he made any concession to diversity. Thus to him the uniformity of the product was the key to mass physical processes.

This inflexible mass physical processes is however, based on a misunderstanding. It is the essence of genuine mass physical processes that it can create a greater diversity of products than any method ever designed by man. It does not rest on uniform products. It rests on uniform components which can than be mass-assembled into a large variety of different products.

The model of mass physical processes is therefore not the old Ford assembly line. It is rather the farm equipment manufacturer who designs and makes specialized cultivating machines for large-scale farming on irrigated land - where each one of the designs is unique. They make, for instance, a machine that performs with various attachments, all operations needed in large scale cucumber growing from preparing the hills in the spring, then harvesting cucumbers at the right stage of their growth, then picking them. They rarely make more than one of each machine at a time. Yet every one of the more than seven hundred different machines is made up entirely of mass-produced, uniform, standardized components, which someone in the industrial background turns out by the thousands. Their biggest job is not to solve the problem of designing a machine that will identify cucumbers of the right ripeness for picking, but to find a mass producer of part that, though originally designed for an entirely different purpose, will, when put on the cucumber cultivator, do whatever is needed.

The specific technique for applying this principle is the systematic analysis of products to find the pattern that underlies their multiplicity. Then this pattern can be organized so that the minimum number of produced components will make possible the assembly of the maximum number of products. The burden of diversity, in other words, is taken out of process and shifted to assembly.

Physical processes in a company is physical processing of components - even though the final products are widely different. The burden of variety is thrown on assembly. The components themselves can be produced continuously against a schedule determined by the size of the capacity rather than by customer orders and the size of the capacity is again determined by the time needed for assembly and delivery.

This flexible mass physical processes is the most immediately useful physical processes concept that we have in our possession today. It is above all the logical methods of 'Operations Research' that allow us to take the complicated analyses of products and components that are necessary to put the correct mass physical processes into effect.

Wherever this new principle has actually been applied, cost reductions have been spectacular sometimes reaching 50 or 60 percent. Nor is its application confined to the physical processes process itself. By making it possible to keep a capacity in component form instead of in aggregated form, it often enables a company to cut its costs and yet give the customer better service.

This new principle does achieve, in other words, what Henry Ford was after: the continuous physical processes of uniform things without interruption because of an irregular flow of customer orders, or the need to change tools, styles or models. But it does this not by producing uniform products but by producing standardized components. Uniformity in process is coupled with diversity in assembly.

Obviously the application of the mass physical processes principle is not simple. It goes well beyond process and requires hard and extensive work on the part of the marketing people, engineers, financial people, personnel people, purchasing agents and so forth. It carries risks as it must be based on a fairly long physical processes cycle at a constant rate of machine utilization - three, six, in some cases, eighteen months. It requires new accounting tools.

Flexible mass physical processes can also not be put in overnight - the development in some companies will take years. But so great are the savings that a company will recover the expense of a virtually complete redesign of its products and process facilities in fewer than two years.


3. ANALOGUE PHYSICAL PROCESSES

The third system is analogue physical processes. Here process and product become one.

The oldest example of an analogue industry is that of oil refining. The end products that a refinery will obtain out of crude oil are determined by the processes it uses. It can produce only the oil distillates for which it is built and only in definite proportions. If new distillates have to be added, or if the proportion between the various distillates is to be changed significantly, the refinery has to be rebuilt. Analogue processes is the rule in the chemical industries, and it is, with minor variations, the basic system of a bulk flow processing or continuous flow plant.

Both mass physical processes flexible and analogue physical processes are ready for Automation and Technological Development.

	FLEXIBILITY OF PROCESSES
	Highly Modular & Flexible
	Highly Flexible
	Flexible
	Inflexible
	Highly Inflexible

H98       Grid Definition

PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Management must demand that those responsible for physical processes know which system of physical processing is appropriate, and apply the principles of that system consistently and to the limit. These are the first and decisive steps in pushing back the limitations of physical processes on business performance.

Only when these steps have been taken can the next one be made: the organization of components of physical processes on the basis of a more advanced system.

The result of doing this without first analyzing the physical processes process and organizing it properly is shown by the failure of many kit-built products. It would seem the most obvious thing in the world to build a house from prefabricated, standardized components. Yet the attempt, when made after the Second World War, proved abortive.

The reason was that uniform, standardized components - mass physical processes, in other words, were superimposed on a badly disorganized unique-product system. Instead of homogeneous stages, the organizing principle was craft organization. The use of prefabricated components in a craft system proved more expensive and slower than the old methods. When, however, one company organized home building by homogeneous stages, they could immediately use uniform standardized prefabricated components with conspicuous savings in time and money.

Similarly, standardized components brought no savings in a repair shop as long as it was craft-organized. When the work was organized in teams, each containing all the skills needed in a particular stage of the work, when in other words, craft organization was replaced by stage organization, standardized components brought tremendous savings.

This is of particular importance in a mass physical processes industry, which produces diversified products. For there the great opportunity lies in the application of Automation; and this can only be achieved if physical processes are properly understood and organized as the manufacture of uniform components and their assembly into diversified products.

PROCESS DEMANDS

But management must also know what the various systems of physical processes demand of its own competence and performance.

In unique-product physical processes, management's first job, it might be said, is to get an order. In mass physical processes, the job is to build an effective distributive organization and to educate the customer to adapt his wants to the range of product variety. In analogue physical processes, the first task is to create, maintain and expand a market and to find new markets.

Unique-product physical processes has high costs for the individual product but great flexibility in the plant.

Mass physical processes flexible has the ability to supply wants cheaply and within a wide and flexible range of products. But it requires much higher capital investment than unique product physical processes and a much higher level of continuous activity; it involves inventory risks; and it needs a distributive organization that can sell continuously rather than one that goes after a specialized, individual order.

Analogue physical processes requires the highest capital investment (in absolute values) and the most nearly continuous operation. Also, since products and process have, so to speak, become one, new products will be created by changes in the process even if there is no demand for them in the existing market; a common occurrence, for example, in the chemical industry. Management must therefore develop new markets for any new products as well as maintain a steady market for the old. Indeed, under Automation it is a major responsibility of management both in mass physical processes and in analogue physical processes to maintain a steadier level of economic activity and to prevent extreme economic fluctuations, whether of boom or of depression.

Under the unique-product system the time-span of decisions is short. Under mass physical processes it becomes longer: a distributive organization, for instance, may take ten years to build. But under a process system decisions are made for an even longer future. Once built, the physical processes facilities are relatively inflexible and can be changed only at major expense; the total investment may be large; and the development of a market is long range. The marketing systems of the big oil companies are good examples. The more advanced the physical processes organization, the more important are decisions for the future.

Each system requires different management skills and organization.

Unique-product physical processes requires people good at a technical function.

Mass physical processes - inflexible and flexible - requires management trained in analytical thinking, in scheduling and in planning.

Flexible mass physical processes as well as analogue physical processes requires management trained in seeing a business as a whole in conceptual synthesis and in decision-making.

Under unique-product physical processes management can be centralized at the top. Co-ordination between the various functions is needed primarily at the top. Selling, design, engineering and physical processes can all be distinct and need only come together where company policy is being determined. It is this pattern of unique-product physical processes that is still largely assumed in our organization theory - even though unique-product physical processes may well be the exception rather than the rule in the majority of industry today.

Mass physical processes inflexible can still maintain this pattern, though with considerable difficulty and at a high price of efficiency. It does better with a pattern that establishes centers of decision and integration much further down. For it requires close co-ordination between the engineers who design the product, the physical processes people who make it, the sales people who market it, and so forth.

In both mass physical processes flexible and analogue physical processes, functional centralization is impossible. They require the closest co-operation of people from all functions at every stage. They require that design, physical processes, marketing and the organization of the work be tackled simultaneously by a team representing all functions. They require that every member of the team both know his own functional work and see the impact on the whole business all the time, and decisions affecting the business as a whole have to be taken at a decentralized level - sometimes at a level not even considered as 'management' today.

There are significant differences with respect to the work force and its management. Unique-product physical processes can usually adjust its work force to economic fluctuations, keeping in bad times only foremen and a nucleus of the most highly skilled. It can, as a rule, find what other skills it needs on the labor market. Precisely because they have limited skill, the workers in inflexible mass physical processes must increasingly demand employment stability from the enterprise, and in any business that uses Automation (whether flexible mass physical processes or analogue physical processes) the enterprise itself must make efforts to stabilize employment. For the work force needed for Automation consists largely of people trained both in skill and in theoretical understanding. It not only represents too great an investment to be disbanded; it can normally only be created within the company and with years of effort. It is neither accident nor philanthropy that the oil companies - typical process businesses - have tried so hard to keep employment steady even in bad depression years.

Under Automation there are few ' workers'. As said before, Automation will not (in the traditional sense of the work) cut down the total number of people employed - just as mass physical processes did not do so. What we can see so far in the process industries shows clearly that the total work force does not shrink. On the contrary, it needs to expand. But Automation requires totally different workers who are actually much closer to the professional and technical specialist than to today's physical processes worker. This creates a problem of managing people that is quite different from any 'personnel management problem' business men are normally familiar with.

	AUTOMATION RATING
	Substantial Usage
	High Usage
	Average Usage
	Low Usage
	No Usage

H99      Grid Definition

PROCESS AUTOMATION

One has learned to be extremely skeptical of any prediction of imminent revolution or of sweeping changes in technology or business organization. After all, today, two hundred years since the first Industrial Revolution there still flourishes in our midst the garment industry, a large industry organized on the 'putting-out' system which, the textbooks tell us, had become obsolete by 1750. It would not be difficult to find other examples of such living ancestors who are blissfully (indeed profitably) unaware that they died a long time ago.

Certainly the obstacles to the Automation revolution are great - above all, the lack of men properly trained in the new concepts and skills. Also it has been estimated that only one quarter of industries could readily benefit from Automation at the present state of its technology. Even a real 'Automation revolution' would be a gradual and highly uneven process.

Still revolutions do happen - and in the industry there will be one powerful force pushing towards an Automation revolution in the next decade: the shortage of workers. As a result mainly of the lean birth years of recent decades. Yet, the total population will go up much faster, even if present record birth rates should not be maintained. To reach minimum growth objectives indicated by population figures, technological progress and economic trends would require, in many companies, a doubling of the labor force, were physical processes to continue on the present system.

Even without a resolution, the most significant, the most promising and most continuous opportunity to improve the performance of business enterprise will not lie, for decades to come, in new machines or new processes. It will lie first in the consistent application of the new mass physical processes principle and secondly in the application of the principles of Automation. The techniques and tools of physical processes management will continue to be a specialized subject with which only physical processes people need to be familiar. But every manager will have to acquire an understanding of the principles of physical processes - above all, an understanding that efficient physical processes is a matter of principles rather than of machines or gadgets. For without it he will not, in the decades ahead, adequately discharge his job.

HISTORIC FINANCIAL DATA
PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL ISSUES

F_H - FIN_HIST.HTM   HISTORIC FINANCIAL DATA

 Financial Definitions

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS

FINANCIAL DATA FORECAST

 

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING BASED BALANCE SHEET FORECASTS

The PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS BALANCE SHEET FORECASTS section gives a series of Balance Sheet Forecasts for the industry using a number of assumptions relating to the process and order handling decisions available to the management of the industry.

The Balance sheet forecast given shows the effects of financial improvements which Management is likely to recommend:

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS

- Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario

- New Plant + Equipment Investment
- New Technology Investment
- Distribution & Product Delivery Cost Objectives
- Order Taking Improvements
- Customer / Order Processing Systems Investment
- Systems Investment
- Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios
- Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction
- Profit Impact From Customer Handling Cost Reduction
- Capital Investments Options: Process Plant & Equipment
- Capital Investments Options: Distribution / Handling
- Capital Investments Options: Customer Handling Systems
- Customer Handling Improvements

Managers in the industry will, in both the short-term and the long-term, have vital decisions to make regarding the process improvements, margins and profitability and these decisions will need to be evaluated in light of the customers, markets, competitors, products, industry and internal factors. The scenarios given isolate a number of the most important factors and provide balance sheet forecasts for each of the scenarios.

The data provides a short and medium term forecast covering the next 6 years for each of the Forecast Financial and Operational items. The Financial and Operational Data sections show each of the items listed below in terms of forecast data and covers a period of the next 6 years.

Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario

F0M|     MEDIAN  FORECAST : Financials

G0M|     MEDIAN  FORECAST : Margins & Ratios

New Plant + Equipment Investment

F04 |     NEW PLANT + EQUIPMENT INVESTMENT : Financials

G04 |     NEW PLANT + EQUIPMENT INVESTMENT : Margins & Ratios

New Technology Investment

F05 |     NEW TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT : Financials

G05 |     NEW TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT : Margins & Ratios

Distribution & Product Delivery Cost Objectives

F28 |     DISTRIBUTION & PRODUCT DELIVERY COST OBJECTIVES : Financials

G28 |     DISTRIBUTION & PRODUCT DELIVERY COST OBJECTIVES : Margins & Ratios

Order Taking Improvements

F42 |     ORDER TAKING IMPROVEMENTS : Financials

G42 |     ORDER TAKING IMPROVEMENTS : Margins & Ratios

Customer / Order Processing Systems Investment

F45 |     CUSTOMER / ORDER PROCESSING SYSTEMS INVESTMENT : Financials

G45 |     CUSTOMER / ORDER PROCESSING SYSTEMS INVESTMENT : Margins & Ratios

Systems Investment

F46 |     SYSTEMS INVESTMENT : Financials

G46 |     SYSTEMS INVESTMENT : Margins & Ratios

Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios

F53 |     PLANT & EQUIPMENT COST SCENARIOS : Financials

G53 |     PLANT & EQUIPMENT COST SCENARIOS : Margins & Ratios

Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction

F63 |     PROFIT IMPACT FROM PROCESS COST REDUCTION : Financials

G63 |     PROFIT IMPACT FROM PROCESS COST REDUCTION : Margins & Ratios

Profit Impact From Customer Handling Cost Reduction

F65 |     PROFIT IMPACT FROM CUSTOMER HANDLING COST REDUCTION : Financials

G65 |     PROFIT IMPACT FROM CUSTOMER HANDLING COST REDUCTION : Margins & Ratios

Capital Investments Options: Process Plant & Equipment

F66 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: PROCESS PLANT & EQUIPMENT : Financials

G66 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: PROCESS PLANT & EQUIPMENT : Margins & Ratios

Capital Investments Options: Distribution / Handling

F68 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: DISTRIBUTION / HANDLING : Financials

G68 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: DISTRIBUTION / HANDLING : Margins & Ratios

Capital Investments Options: Customer Handling Systems

F69 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: CUSTOMER HANDLING SYSTEMS : Financials

G69 |     CAPITAL INVESTMENTS OPTIONS: CUSTOMER HANDLING SYSTEMS : Margins & Ratios

Customer Handling Improvements

F72 |     CUSTOMER HANDLING IMPROVEMENTS : Financials

G72 |     CUSTOMER HANDLING IMPROVEMENTS : Margins & Ratios

FIN_DEFI.HTM Financial Definitions

INDEX

ANALOGUE PHYSICAL PROCESSES, 4, 9
Automation, 4
AUTOMATION RATING, 11
Average Usage, 11

Balance Sheet Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario, 24
Balance Sheet Capital Investments Options: Customers, 72
Balance Sheet Capital Investments Options: Distribution, 68
Balance Sheet Capital Investments Options: Process, 64
Balance Sheet Customer Handling Improvements, 76
Balance Sheet Customer / Order Processing Systems, 44
Balance Sheet Distribution & Product Delivery Cost, 36
Balance Sheet Historic, 18
Balance Sheet New Plant + Equipment Investment, 28
Balance Sheet New Technology Investment, 32
Balance Sheet Order Taking Improvements, 40
Balance Sheet Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios, 52
Balance Sheet Profit Impact From Customer Handling, 60
Balance Sheet Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction, 56
Balance Sheet Systems Investment, 48

Capital investment, 9
Costs & Margins Historic, 19

Diversified products, 2

Financial data definitions, 81
Financial forecast notes, 22
Financial Ratios Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario, 26
Financial Ratios Capital Investments Options: Customers, 74
Financial Ratios Capital Investments Options: Distribution, 70
Financial Ratios Capital Investments Options: Processes, 66
Financial Ratios Customer Handling Improvements, 78
Financial Ratios Customer / Order Processing Systems, 46
Financial Ratios Distribution & Product Delivery Cost, 38
Financial Ratios New Plant + Equipment Investment, 30
Financial Ratios New Technology Investment, 34
Financial Ratios Order Taking Improvements, 42
Financial Ratios Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios, 54
Financial Ratios Profit Impact From Customer Handling, 62
Financial Ratios Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction, 58
Financial Ratios Systems Investment, 50
Financial Ratios & Margins Historic, 20
FLEXIBILITY OF PROCESSES, 5
Flexible, 2, 5

High Usage, 11
Highly Flexible, 5
Highly Inflexible, 5
Highly Modular & Flexible, 5
HISTORIC FINANCIAL DATA, 17

Inflexible, 2, 5

Low Usage, 11

MASS PHYSICAL PROCESSES, 3

No Usage, 11

Operational Costs Base Forecast : Median Market, 25
Operational Costs Capital Investments: Customers, 73
Operational Costs Capital Investments: Distribution, 69
Operational Costs Capital Investments: Processes, 65
Operational Costs Customer Handling Improvements, 77
Operational Costs Customer / Order Processing Systems, 45
Operational Costs Distribution & Product Delivery, 37
Operational Costs New Plant + Equipment Investment, 29
Operational Costs New Technology Investment, 33
Operational Costs Order Taking Improvements, 41
Operational Costs Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios, 53
Operational Costs Profit Impact From Customer Handling, 61
Operational Costs Profit Impact From Process Cost, 57
Operational Costs Systems Investment, 49
Operational Margins Base Forecast : Median Market, 27
Operational Margins Capital Investments: Customers, 75
Operational Margins Capital Investments: Distribution, 71
Operational Margins Capital Investments: Processes, 67
Operational Margins Customer Handling Improvements, 79
Operational Margins Customer / Order Processing Systems, 47
Operational Margins Distribution & Product Delivery, 39
Operational Margins New Plant + Equipment Investments, 31
Operational Margins New Technology Investment, 35
Operational Margins Order Taking Improvements, 43
Operational Margins Plant & Equipment Cost Scenario, 55
Operational Margins Profit Impact From Customer Handling, 63
Operational Margins Profit Impact From Process Costs, 59
Operational Margins Systems Investment, 51
Operational Ratios & Margins Historic, 21

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING, 1
PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS, 23
PHYSICAL SYSTEMS, 2
PROCESS AUTOMATION, 15
PROCESS DEMANDS, 9
PROCESS MANAGEMENT, 9
PROCESS PRINCIPLES, 1

Substantial Usage, 11

Technological Development, 4

Uniform products, 2
UNIQUE-PRODUCT PHYSICAL PROCESSES, 3, 9

Workers, 10

CONTENTS

Analogue physical
ANALOGUE PHYSICAL PROCESSES
AUTOMATION RATING
Automation
Average Usage
Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario
capital investment
Capital Investments Options: Customer Handling Systems
Capital Investments Options: Distribution / Handling
Capital Investments Options: Process Plant & Equipment
Customer / Order Processing Systems Investment
Customer Handling Improvements
Distribution & Product Delivery Cost Objectives
diversified products
FLEXIBILITY OF PROCESSES
Flexible
flexible
High Usage
Highly Flexible
Highly Inflexible
Highly Modular & Flexible
HISTORIC FINANCIAL DATA
Inflexible
inflexible
Low Usage
MASS PHYSICAL PROCESSES
New Plant + Equipment Investment
New Technology Investment
No Usage
Order Taking Improvements
PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS FORECASTS
PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING
PHYSICAL SYSTEMS
Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios
PROCESS AUTOMATION
PROCESS DEMANDS
PROCESS MANAGEMENT
PROCESS PRINCIPLES
Profit Impact From Customer Handling Cost Reduction
Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction
Substantial Usage
Systems Investment
Technological Development
uniform products
UNIQUE-PRODUCT PHYSICAL PROCESSES
Unique-product physical processes
workers

PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING
PROCESS PRINCIPLES
PHYSICAL SYSTEMS
UNIQUE-PRODUCT PHYSICAL PROCESSES
MASS PHYSICAL PROCESSES
ANALOGUE PHYSICAL PROCESSES
PROCESS MANAGEMENT
PROCESS DEMANDS
PROCESS AUTOMATION
HISTORIC FINANCIAL DATA
PHYSICAL PROCESS + ORDER HANDLING FINANCIAL SCENARIOS FORECASTS
FLEXIBILITY OF PROCESSES
Highly Modular & Flexible
Highly Flexible
Flexible
Inflexible
Highly Inflexible
AUTOMATION RATING
Substantial Usage
High Usage
Average Usage
Low Usage
No Usage
Base Forecast : Median Market Scenario
New Plant + Equipment Investment
New Technology Investment
Distribution & Product Delivery Cost Objectives
Order Taking Improvements
Customer / Order Processing Systems Investment
Systems Investment
Plant & Equipment Cost Scenarios
Profit Impact From Process Cost Reduction
Profit Impact From Customer Handling Cost Reduction
Capital Investments Options: Process Plant & Equipment
Capital Investments Options: Distribution / Handling
Capital Investments Options: Customer Handling Systems
Customer Handling Improvements