「A-level 商务知识点」生产的基础知识 Basics of Production

Production Decision Making

Basics of Production

生产决策——生产的基础知识

This is the decision that a business or an industry makes concerning its geographical placing in a country. There are many factors which influence the precise location of a business or an industry, including 这是一个企业或一个行业就其在一个国家的地理位置所做的决定。有许多因素影响企业或行业的准确位置，包括 :

• The cost and the availability of land. Land in an urban area is clearly less abundant (and therefore more expensive) than land in rural locations or on the edge of towns and cities. Therefore it would be advisable, and also more feasible, for a business which requires a large amount of land to locate away from the centre of an urban area.

土地的成本和可用性。城市地区的土地显然比农村地区或城镇边缘的土地要少（因此也更贵）。因此，对于一个需要大量土地的企业来说，远离城市中心是明智的，也是更可行的。

• The cost and the availability of labour. The unemployment rate varies in different areas of the UK, and a business which is labour-intensive may choose to locate near to an area of high unemployment in order to take advantage of the availability of labour at a fairly low wage.

劳动力的成本和可用性。英国不同地区的失业率各不相同，劳动密集型企业可能会选择靠近高失业率的地区，以利用相当低的工资来获得劳动力。

• Communication links. Many businesses choose to locate near to motorways, rail links, seaports or airports if they either have a significant amount of raw materials to receive, or a significant number of products to distribute across a wide area of the country.

通信连接。许多企业选择靠近高速公路、铁路、海港或机场，如果他们有大量的原材料需要接收，或者有大量的产品需要在全国范围内分销。

• Transport costs/proximity to the market. Some businesses will locate in certain areas of the country in order to minimise their transportation costs. For example, producers of fast-moving consumer goods (f.m.c.gs) will often have to distribute their products nationwide, and therefore will try to locate as near to the market as possible so their transportation costs are not excessively high.

运输成本/离市场近的地方。一些企业为了最大限度地降低运输成本，会在国内的某些地区设点。例如，快速消费品（f.m.c.g.）的生产者往往需要在全国范围内分销他们的产品，因此，他们会尽量选择靠近市场的地方，这样他们的运输成本就不会过高。

• Availability of raw materials. Some businesses will try to locate near to their suppliers or to the source of their raw materials. For example, businesses which require bulky raw materials, such as timber, will often try to locate near their suppliers so to reduce the lead-time between ordering and receiving the raw materials.

原材料的供应。一些企业会尽量选择靠近其供应商或原材料来源的地方。例如，需要大体积原材料的企业，如木材，通常会尽量靠近他们的供应商，以减少订购和接收原材料之间的准备时间。

• Government location incentives. The UK government has over the past 30 years offered a range of incentives to businesses to locate in depressed areas of the UK, in order to reduce the unemployment rates in those areas by creating jobs. The incentives (such as grants, tax breaks, and reduced rent and rates) are offered both to existing businesses to relocate to the depressed areas, as well as to new businesses which are about to set up.

政府的选址激励措施。在过去的30年里，英国政府为企业提供了一系列的激励措施，让他们在英国的萧条地区落户，以便通过创造就业机会来降低这些地区的失业率。这些激励措施（如补助金、税收减免、降低租金和费率）既提供给现有企业搬迁到萧条地区，也提供给即将建立的新企业。

Industrial inertia refers to the situation when a business or an industry decides to remain in its original location and is very reluctant to relocate, even after the reasons for it locating there in the first place are exhausted. Possible reasons for this include 产业惯性是指当一个企业或一个行业决定留在原来的地方，并且非常不愿意搬迁的情况，即使当初它在那里的理由已经用完。可能的原因包括:

1. The cost of moving may be very large. 搬迁的成本可能非常大。
2. Strong links with the local community and with other local businesses may have been developed and a move away from there may destroy those links. 与当地社区和其他当地企业可能已经建立了牢固的联系，而搬离那里可能会破坏这些联系。
3. Some areas and products have an international reputation which may be difficult to establish if the business were to locate elsewhere (e.g. Scottish whisky). 有些地区和产品具有国际声誉，如果企业迁往其他地方，可能很难建立这种声誉（例如苏格兰威士忌）。

However, industrial inertia can actually make an area become depressed if that area depends on a particular industry or business for employment and wealth-creation. If the industry goes into decline and no other industries or businesses wish to move to this area, then mass unemployment is created, and many of these unemployed will not be trained to perform any other jobs.

然而，如果一个地区的就业和财富创造依赖于某个特定的行业或企业，那么产业惯性实际上会使该地区变得萧条。如果该行业进入衰退期，没有其他行业或企业愿意搬到这个地区，那么就会产生大规模的失业，而这些失业者中的许多人将不会接受培训来从事任何其他工作。

International location of industry is also a very important factor in today's global business environment. As well as the reasons for location mentioned earlier, there are a number of other factors that a business will need to consider before choosing a foreign country in which to locate.

在今天的全球商业环境中，产业的国际位置也是一个非常重要的因素。除了前面提到的选址原因外，企业在选择国外选址之前，还需要考虑一些其他因素。

These factors include 这些因素包括 :

• the language spoken 使用的语言
• legal differences 法律差异
• the economic environment 经济环境
• the stability of the political structure 政治结构的稳定性

Over the past 25 years, the UK government has encouraged much foreign investment into the UK from outside Europe - specifically from Japan. These Japanese companies (e.g. Nissan, Sony) create wealth for the UK by providing employment and income to workers, and paying tax to the UK government. They can help to rejuvenate depressed areas and often purchase their supplies and raw materials from other UK businesses.

在过去的25年里，英国政府鼓励许多来自欧洲以外的外国投资进入英国--特别是来自日本。这些日本公司（如日产、索尼）为英国创造财富，为工人提供就业和收入，并向英国政府缴税。他们可以帮助萧条地区恢复活力，并经常从英国其他企业购买他们的用品和原材料。

The Japanese companies are enticed to locate in the UK through a number of factors 吸引日本公司在英国落户的因素有很多:

1. English is the first foreign language taught in Japan. 英语是日本教授的第一门外语。
2. Low wage rates in the UK. 英国的低工资率。
3. Government incentives to locate in the UK (e.g. cheap rent, rates, etc). 政府对落户英国的激励措施（如廉价的租金、房价等）。
4. Gateway for selling goods to other EU countries. 向其他欧盟国家销售商品的通道。

There are four ways for manufacturing businesses to organise their production - job production, batch production, flow production and cell production.

制造业企业有四种组织生产的方式--作业生产、批量生产、流动生产和单元生产。

This method of production involves an item being manufactured entirely by one worker or by a group of workers. 这种生产方式是指完全由一名工人或一组工人来制造一件物品。

These items are often made to customer requirements, rather than being mass produced. This type of production is usually undertaken by small businesses and craft industries (e.g. carpenters), although larger businesses which specialise in 'one-off' products (e.g. bridges) may also use this production method. 这些物品通常是根据客户的要求制作的，而不是大规模生产。这种类型的生产通常由小型企业和手工业（如木匠）承担，尽管专门生产 "一次性 "产品的大型企业（如桥梁）也可能使用这种生产方法。

This method of production involves the manufacture of an item being divided into a number of small tasks. A collection (or 'batch') of items each have one of these tasks completed, and then the batch moves onto the next manufacturing task.

这种生产方法涉及到将一件物品的制造分成若干小任务。一组（或'批次'）的物品各自完成其中一个任务，然后批次进入下一个制造任务。

In other words, several items have the same task performed on each of them and then they move onto the next task together in a group.

换句话说，几件物品中的每一件都有相同的任务，然后它们一起进入下一个任务，形成一个群体。

This production method can result in the build-up of large amounts of stock and work-in-progress. This may be a problem if the business is in a fashion industry, where customers' tastes can change quickly and unpredictably, leaving the business with much stock that it is unable to sell.

这种生产方法可能会导致大量库存和在制品的积累。如果企业属于时尚行业，这可能是一个问题，因为客户的口味可能会迅速改变，而且无法预测，从而使企业有很多库存无法出售。

This method of production involves the tasks which were identified in 'batch' production becoming continuous for each unit, often with the use of a moving conveyor belt (e.g. a car assembly line). Each unit is produced individually, instead of being produced in batches.

这种生产方式涉及到在 "批量 "生产中确定的任务成为每个单元的连续任务，通常使用移动的传送带（例如，汽车装配线）。每个单元都是单独生产的，而不是成批生产的。

This type of production is usually undertaken by large businesses. This method of production was first established by Henry Ford in the 1920s, when he developed the world's first automated production line. This involved each car passing the workers on a moving conveyor belt, rather than the workers continually moving to the car. This method should boost labour productivity and reduce average cost of production even further.

这种类型的生产通常由大型企业承担。这种生产方式最早是由亨利-福特在20世纪20年代建立的，当时他开发了世界上第一条自动化生产线。这涉及到每辆汽车在移动的传送带上经过工人，而不是工人不断地移动到汽车上。这种方法应该可以提高劳动生产率，进一步降低平均生产成本。

It is often argued that flow production leads to high rates of alienation, demotivation and absenteeism amongst the employees - it is for these reasons that much machinery is today used on these production lines to perform simple, repetitive tasks which humans may easily become bored in performing.

经常有人认为，流水线生产会导致员工的疏离感、积极性和缺勤率很高--正是由于这些原因，今天在这些生产线上使用了许多机器来执行简单的、重复的任务，而人类在执行这些任务时很容易感到厌烦。

This method of manufacturing an item organises workers into 'cells' within the factory, with each cell comprising several workers who each possess different skills. Each cell is independent of the other cells and will usually produce a complete item, and each cell will usually have an output target to achieve for a given period of time.

这种制造物品的方法将工人组织到工厂的 "单元 "中，每个单元由几个工人组成，他们各自拥有不同的技能。每个单元都独立于其他单元，通常会生产一个完整的物品，每个单元通常都有一个产出目标，要在一定时间内完成。

It is often argued that if the group of workers in each cell can see the completion of the finished product, then their work will have more meaning and therefore their levels of motivation and job satisfaction will be greatly enhanced.

通常认为，如果每个单元中的工人群体能够看到成品的完成，那么他们的工作就会有更多的意义，因此他们的积极性和工作满意度也会大大增强。

All businesses need to develop long-term strategies, and an important part of this strategy must be the continual development and launch of new products, or amendments made to existing products. This is the purpose of research and development (R&D).

所有企业都需要制定长期战略，而这个战略的一个重要部分必须是不断开发和推出新产品，或对现有产品进行修正。这就是研究与发展（R&D）的目的。

R&D can basically be defined as 研发基本上可以被定义为:

'carrying out extensive scientific research into the product and its design, and then developing a range of prototypes, each to a slightly different specification.'

对产品及其设计进行广泛的科学研究，然后开发一系列的原型，每个原型的规格略有不同。

The prototype which best meets the needs of the customers and the business is then likely to be commercialised.

然后，最能满足客户和企业需求的原型可能会被商业化。

The development of products can take several years to complete and many businesses spend a huge amount of money on this process (e.g. Unilever spent over £600 million on R&D in 1997). It can often be a very risky process, since much money can be spent on ideas that will never be commercialised.

产品的开发可能需要几年的时间才能完成，许多企业在这个过程中花费了大量的资金（例如，联合利华在1997年花费了超过6亿英镑用于研发）。这往往是一个非常有风险的过程，因为很多钱可能花在永远不会被商业化的想法上。

It is within the 'sunrise' industries (i.e. industries which are fairly young and have rapid growth potential, such as computers and aerospace) that extensive R&D spending today can result in a huge competitive advantage in the future.

正是在 "朝阳 "产业（即相当年轻并具有快速增长潜力的产业，如计算机和航空航天）中，今天广泛的研发支出可以在未来带来巨大的竞争优势。

The benefit of being the first company to launch a new, innovative product is immeasurable, since the company can charge a high price and build up a strong market share as it faces no competition.

作为第一家推出创新产品的公司，其好处是不可估量的，因为该公司可以收取高价并建立强大的市场份额，因为它没有面临竞争。

It is estimated that only about one product in the pharmaceutical industry reaches the commercialisation stage (i.e. launched onto the market) for every ten which are developed and test-marketed. Therefore, the company will have massive R&D costs to recoup when it actually launches a new product, and it will probably take several years before it will have broken-even and covered all the R&D costs.

据估计，在制药业中，每开发和试销10个产品，只有1个达到商业化阶段（即投放市场）。因此，当公司真正推出新产品时，将有大量的研发成本需要收回，而且可能需要几年的时间才能达到收支平衡并支付所有的研发成本。

The businesses which are most likely to succeed in the future are those which develop more new products than their closest rivals, bring their new products to the market in less time than their rivals, compete in more product- and geographic-markets than their rivals, and provide very strong after-sales service to customers.

未来最有可能成功的企业是那些比其最接近的对手开发更多的新产品，比其对手在更短的时间内将其新产品推向市场，比其对手在更多的产品和地理市场上竞争，并为客户提供非常强大的售后服务。