Information flowIn discourse-based grammatical theory, information flow is any tracking of referential information by speakers. Information may be new, i.e., just introduced into the conversation; given, i.e., already active in the speakers' consciousness; or old, i.e., no longer active. The various types of activation, and how these are defined, are model-dependent. Information flow affects grammatical structures such as: word order (topic, focus, and afterthought constructions). active, passive, or middle voice.
Demand managementDemand management is a planning methodology used to forecast, plan for and manage the demand for products and services. This can be at macro-levels as in economics and at micro-levels within individual organizations. For example, at macro-levels, a government may influence interest rates to regulate financial demand. At the micro-level, a cellular service provider may provide free night and weekend use to reduce demand during peak hours. Demand management has a defined set of processes, capabilities and recommended behaviors for companies that produce goods and services.
Kanban (development)Kanban (Japanese: 看板, meaning signboard or billboard) is a lean method to manage and improve work across human systems. This approach aims to manage work by balancing demands with available capacity, and by improving the handling of system-level bottlenecks. Work items are visualized to give participants a view of progress and process, from start to finish—usually via a kanban board. Work is pulled as capacity permits, rather than work being pushed into the process when requested.
Production and Operations ManagementProduction and Operations Management is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on all aspects of operations management, production management, management science, supply chain management, and manufacturing engineering. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Production and Operations Management Society. It is listed as one of the 45 journals used by the Financial Times to compile its business-school research ranks and Bloomberg Businessweeks Top 20 Journals.
Scheduling (production processes)Scheduling is the process of arranging, controlling and optimizing work and workloads in a production process or manufacturing process. Scheduling is used to allocate plant and machinery resources, plan human resources, plan production processes and purchase materials. It is an important tool for manufacturing and engineering, where it can have a major impact on the productivity of a process. In manufacturing, the purpose of scheduling is to keep due dates of customers and then minimize the production time and costs, by telling a production facility when to make, with which staff, and on which equipment.