UNIT 8: PRODUCTION
Vocabulary: Industrial production
1. Inventory (AmE and BrE) or stock (BrE) is a company’s reserves of raw
materials, parts, work in process, and finished product
2. A component is any of the pieces of parts that make up a product or machine
3. Capacity is the (maximum) rate of output that can be achieved from a production
process
4. Plant is a collective word for all the buildings, machines, equipment, and other
facilities used in the production process
5. Location means the geographical situation of a factory or other facility
6. A supply chain is a network of organizations involved in producing and
delivering goods or a service
7. Outsourcing means buying products or processed materials from other companies
rather than manufacturing them
8. Economics of scale are the cost savings arising from large-scale production
9. Lead time is the time needed to perform an activity such as manufacturing a
product or delivering it to a customer
Reading: Capacity and inventory
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
A,E C D A,E A D F E F E B E B E B,F
Listening 1: Purchasing
1. What does he describe as ‘one of the main goals of any company’?
He describes as one of the main goals of any company is to drive down the cost of
raw materials and components that are used in manufacture
2. What is the advantage of being part of a larger group of companies?
It is having the leverage of global buying power, that helps enomoursly
3. How does a reverse auction work?
They post on an Internet site the lowest price with which they would do business
with us and compete against each other in that way
4. Why is it called ‘reverse’?
Because reverse has to be very carefully managed and there are a number of
strategies in its use
5. What does he mean by ‘price isn’t everything’
He means they also have to guarantee quality and guarantee that the company can
supply with reliable to that given price
6. What is the consequence of this?
