Production Funnels: A New Tool for Operations Analysis

In all manufacturing operations the sequence, raw materials to components to products, is followed to some degree. Cross‐sectional component flow analysis (CSCFA), or more simply the production “funnel”, is a convenient method for describing in graphical terms the number of physically different items which occur at different levels of the manufacturing process. It provides a useful means of illustrating the nature of the overall operations system of a company and provides a “quick‐and‐dirty” first approach to getting the measure of this system and focusing attention on areas of likely improvement. The approach is particularly useful for those acting in a consulting capacity to manufacturing companies—either as external advisers or on an internal basis as members of a head office staff. Practising production managers should also find it quite a novel way of looking at their own systems which may well unearth many hidden features.