Ind-A4 — Production Management
Production systems, including identification of technical, economic, social, human components and characteristics in the system. Forecasting techniques. Inventories, including role, measuring service level, inventory models and their application in distribution and manufacturing. Aggregate planning of production levels and inventories, including master plan, materials requirements planning (MRP), detailed scheduling and sequencing, assembly line balancing. Information and control systems for production operations. Project planning and control.
Subject outline
Ind-A4 Production Management is an Industrial Engineering technical exam (PEO National Examination 17-Ind-A4) on running a production system: just-in-time and the lean vocabulary — kanban, andon, poka-yoke, jidoka, SMED, the five whys, TPM and OEE — process charts and method study, the economic order and economic production quantities, dynamic lot sizing across a seasonal horizon, forecasting, linear-programming formulations for multi-plant allocation, project scheduling by the critical path method, and machine loading, job sequencing and workforce sizing. The official syllabus also lists service levels and safety stock, aggregate planning with the master production schedule and MRP, assembly line balancing, and information and control systems for production operations; this course is built on the two 2019 papers and does not cover those topics in depth.
The paper is 3 hours and closed book; the rubric permits one of two approved calculators, the Casio or the Sharp. It is set in two sections: answer two questions from Section A and three from Section B, and only the first five as they appear in the answer book are marked. Every question carries 20 marks, and the rubric asks for answers in point form wherever possible.
17-Ind-A4 and 08-Mfg-A3 are the same examination — the Manufacturing Engineering listing carries the other code, and the question papers are headed 17-Ind-A4. Same paper, same syllabus, two faculty codes, and this course is the same package.
What this course gives you
Worked solutions — all fifteen questions from May 2019 and December 2019 (eight and seven), solved in full. Published solutions exist for three sittings and the two most recent are used here. Every calculation has been re-derived independently: five published answers do not hold up, and each is shown beside the corrected figure with the reason worked out in the solution — among them a December lot-sizing plan that is 23,300 dollars more expensive than the optimum, and a December project answer that reports 503 hours when the question asks for production down-time, which is 23 hours. Study notes — ten condensed topics: the JIT and lean vocabulary Section A tests, then process charts, EOQ and EPQ, dynamic lot sizing, forecasting, linear-programming formulation, the critical path method, and machine loading, sequencing and workforce. Practice & case studies — ten multiple-choice questions and five longer problems, one of them a lean-rollout case study, with worked answers for every one. Formula sheet — two pages: inventory and lot sizing, forecasting, project scheduling, sequencing and workforce. This is a closed-book exam, so the sheet is for the night before rather than for the desk. Printable resources — ten cards, including a Section A vocabulary sheet and a "which method do I use?" table keyed to the wording the questions actually use, plus four blank exam stationery templates. Practice papers — the two question papers on their own, unmarked, five pages each, for a timed run.