Functional Area - Question 2 Support
For each function you need to cover:
- The main role/responsibility of that department
- Why that department/function is important
- The different activities that go on day to day
Model Answer:
The production function deals with the production of iron castings for the automotive industry. This means that they pull together all the company’s resources, needed to produce the castings, such as the equipment needed: Lorries to transport the goods, getting the right metal from in to make the goods from. The production area in George Fischer are responsible for buying the correct steel and metal from the suppliers to make products, this means a
constant flow of communication with suppliers to make the products, and other departments such as finance within business.
The production area is responsible for a lot of heavy machinery, these machines, and IT used to control them are all of the production process, and are vital parts to keep production lines going. If the company’s lines go down the business would lose thousands an hour. The IT area (within the finance are in GF) is closely linked to the production line because of the heavy use of IT. As they provide a lot of support, as do the maintenance team. The production lines also require a lot of workers, and often with certain skills, this means that the human resources department would need to employ the workers to work on the production line. This would mean they would also need to know what the job entails, etc and the human resources area would also assign the employees pay. The production team buying the metal for the castings will need to have the metal checked by the quality assurance area if the products are to be made to the high standards that the company aim to produce. The sales team takes all the orders for the business, and George Fischer makes to order, and so the sales team has to let the production team know how many of the products are needed. The sales team will also need to know the cost of the parts the production line make. The finance area will need to know how much the area is spending, etc to not only find the area but to calculate the accounts of the business. The quality assurance area needs to check that the products made by the production area are of the highest quality and that there are no faults.
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