Productie

*Producten

Wat belangrijke algemene termen gerelateerd aan productie van goederen, etc.:

A product can be three of these things:

  • Something natural
  • Something made to be sold
  • A service

When we talk about produce it refers to the general term used for agricultural products such as crops or fruits. For example, at the farmers’ market you can buy produce directly from the farmer.

On the other hand, when something is made it’s produced or manufactured, and it’s made by a producer. The producer can be a country or company. Here we also have to make a difference between a maker or manufacturer of manufactured goods.

Recently there has been lots of improvements on the production of goods.

*Massa productie

Met de massa productie industrie is er weer nieuwe terminolgie ontstaan om een onderscheid te maken tussen de verschillende manier waarop producten gemaakt worden.

I’m Lenny and I’m head of truck production at a manufacturing plant of Volvo. I use the word ‘plant’ because it sounds more modern than factory. On the assembly line, we mass-produce trucks. Our plant is highly automated. We use lots of machinery that is expensive to buy but is very cost-effective, because we never have to pay them wages. We use industrial robots that use CAM for manufacturing. CAM stand for Computer-Aided Manufacturing. You can just program the software for the machine and it starts producing it.

My name is Bart. I have a workshop where I produce chairs ordered by individual costumers. Everything we produce is hand-made. This means we don’t use machinery because it’s a craft industry. It takes lots of work to produce even one piece, and that’s why we call this kind of work ‘labour-intensive’.

*Capaciteit en rendement

The number or type of things that a plant, company, industry or country produces is called the output. On the other hand, productivity is a measure used to see how much is produced in relation to the number of employees. This means that high output per employee is high productivity.

The maximum amount that a plant, company or industry can produce is the capacity, and it if it’s producing that amount, it’s working at full capacity. There is also overproduction, overcapacity or surplus capacity when it’s producing more than is needed. If too many things are produced, there is a glut of products. But if there are not enough goods there is a shortage.

These are general expressions that can also be used in the service industries.

Zelfstudie – oefening

Zijn handgemaakte producten beter dan industrieel gemaakte? Vergelijk enkele producten.