Glossary

Parts Manufacture Approval (PMA) is an aviation industry term used to describe official approval for supplying replacement aircraft parts. PMA approvals are given by national authorities, like the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and give 3rd party manufacturers clearance to produce and sell these parts for installation on certificated aircraft.

Perfect order fulfilment measures the percentage of orders where everything is shipped exactly as ordered, and arrives to the customer on the promised date.

A petrochemical is the term given to any chemical derived from crude oil, crude oil components, or natural gas, but usually excludes fuels. These chemicals have made an enormous impact on the way we live today and appear in things as wide-ranging as: candles, medical equipment, vitamins, dyes and inks, consumer electronics, plastics, food additives and packaging, acrylic paints and detergents.

Phase Gates appear on project plans. They define an intermediate target, and the process to check the target is achieved. They are used in project management to establish that a group of project activities has been completed to the satisfaction of the project leader or phase gate owner, before proceeding on the next phase.

Phase gates usually have two assessed criteria:

• have all required deliverables been achieved and
• has formal approval and an action plan been agreed for the next phase.

A Physiochemical is a chemical which is active or of interest to both chemistry and physiology (the study of life, specifically, how cells, tissues, and organisms function).

Picking is the process of retrieving goods from a storage location.

A Picking List (often ‘pick list’) is a list of items to retrieve from a storage facility such as a warehouse. A picking list is ideally produced for the optimum route through the warehouse, or in reverse order of loading onto a truck.

A Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID) is a schematic drawing which documents connectivity of piping, equipment, instruments and controls. Widely used in process, power and marine industries, a modern P&ID acts as the user interface to a database which defines the names and logical relationships between the equipment and pipes used in each process, and the components that sense, control and display the status of the network of processes and operations.

Point to Point means a direct connection between two locations.

(1) In transportation, especially aviation, this refers to a system where a vehicle travels directly from its start point to its destination. This is in contrast to the use of hubs.

(2) In electronic communications, point to point refers to a permanent communication link between two locations. In telecoms, the abbreviation P2P can mean either point to point, or peer to peer.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is a thermoplastic polymer resin used to make fibers for textiles, plastic containers and other materials. Of these, fiber production accounts for about 60% of production, and bottles about 30%. The polymer has a formula (C10H8O4) and is solid at room temperature.

The plastics used in everything from food packaging to children’s toys are polymers, but the term encompasses a much wider group of materials than that. Other polymers include polystyrene, and the thickeners in shampoo which give them their gel-like consistency. The technical definition of polymer also includes natural materials such as wool, silk, natural rubber, and cellulose.

POSC-Caesar Association is a non-profit global member organization targeting the development of open specifications to be used as standards for enabling the interoperability of data, software and related matters. The Association was responsible for the initiation of ISO 15926, Integration of life-cycle data for process plants including oil and gas production facilities

Possible reserves are oil and gas reserves which are considered likely to be significant. However, the technical and commercial probability of successful production has not been shown to be over 50%. When the over-50% target is achieved, reserves are classified as Probable Reserves.

Postponement involves delaying the final assembly, configuration, and/or packaging of a product.  The goal is to delay incurring this cost, and committing use of materials to a specific configuration to as late as possible in the production process.  This will generally be after an order has been received, and often just before a product ships to the customer.

The Powertrain is the group of components that generate power in motor vehicles and enable movement. For manufacturers and maintainers this includes the engine, transmission, suspension, exhaust system and the wheels. A powertrain warranty will usually cover some not all of these components.

Predictive Maintenance is an approach to equipment service and repair which seeks to prevent unscheduled downtime, and avoid costs of unnecessary maintenance. The approach involves collection of equipment data, analysis of this data to predict future maintenance needs, then planning maintenance in advance of any loss of performance.

Predictive maintenance systems typically measure parameters such as vibration, heat, pressure, noise, and lubricant condition. In conjunction with computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), predictive maintenance enables repair-work orders to be released automatically, repair-parts inventories checked, and routine maintenance scheduled.

Premium Freight is an air or other expedited shipment method that increases the standard cost of filling a customer order.

Preventive Maintenance refers to maintenance activities, often performed by machine operators at regularly scheduled intervals, to keep equipment in good working condition.

The Price – Earnings (P/E) ratio expresses a company’s share price as a multiple of its Earnings Per Share (EPS). P/E ratios are used by investors and analysts to compare relative value of shares across several companies or sectors.

Primary Distribution is the transportation of goods from manufacturers and suppliers to distribution centers. For the receiving distributor, this is inbound freight.

The prime contractor is the contractor possessing a contract with the owner of a project, and has the full responsibility for its completion. A prime contractor undertakes to perform a complete contract, and may employ (and manage) one or more subcontractors to carry out specific parts of the contract.

A Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is a thin plate which provides mounting points for electronic components, and electrical connectivity between them.

Private Label, also called own label goods, are CPG products in a retailer’s own brand livery. Originally, these were lower cost alternatives to familiar market leading branded products. As retailers have pursued and developed their private label strategies, this has changed and many large retailers also have premium private label products.

Probable Reserves are oil and gas reserves not yet classified as Proven Reserves, but which the available evidence suggests have an estimated chance of being technically and commercially producable (i.e. becoming Proven) in excess of 50%.

Process Capability is a specification of facilities within a production plant, with special emphasis on accuracy and consistency of manufacturing processes. In other words, how much product output falls within acceptable tolerances? In process industries, characteristics might be acidity, viscosity, temperature. In discrete industries perhaps shape, size, surface finish are key. In all industries, processing time can be significant.

Process Control is the monitoring and control of a process. The term generally excludes direct manual control, and describes use of an instrument or computer programmed to respond appropriately to feedback, and implement operator commands.

In process manufacturing, input materials or products or both are generally measured by weight or volume because they are agricultural products,  powders, liquids or gases which can’t be counted.

There are two main categories of process manufacturing.

• (1) Continuous production processes involve non-stop production of chemicals, petrochemicals, and other high volume standard product that seldom varies in formulation.
• (2) Batch production processes in which materials are divided into batches which undergo operations such as heating, mixing, and chemical reactions to produce products such as food, beverages, and paint.

(1) In management consultancy, business processes are the groups of activities which govern how resources are used to create products and services that meet the needs of customers and markets. Process Reengineering aims to improve business performance by analysis and redesign of an organization’s business processes.

(2) In process manufacturing, rework of a production process is called process reengineering.

A processor or central processing unit (CPU) is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs.

A product configurator enables selection of options for a product. A typical example is the way computer manufacturers allow online configuration of a PC – selecting memory, disk size etc. Product configurators normally check that the selections are valid. Advanced configurators allow the user to specify only some options, then optimise the remaining options for lowest cost or earliest delivery etc.

Product Data Exchange using STEP (PDES) describes a set of international standards to support the establishment of digital enterprises, through enabling model-based engineering, manufacturing, and sustainability across an extended enterprise. The standards are developed, tested, and published by an industry/government consortium called PDES Inc.

Product Data Management (PDM) is a business process which ensures version, access, and integrity control over all product information across the whole product lifecycle.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are often used to support PDM, handling specification data, CAD files, simulation results, manufacturing data, and other documents to ensure access to consistent information for both current and old products; and to improve information flow and cross-functional communications.

Product Extension (also Product Line Extension) is a business growth strategy in which a new product is created by making a small change to an existing product, and the two products are sold as independent but related. This strategy is widely used in consumer goods, and can be found in other sectors. The addition of ‘Diet Coke’ as a new member of the established Coke beverage family is an example.

The concept of Product Lifecycle helps plan and run a product related business. Between initial concept and end of life there are four phases which every product passes through: introduction, growth, maturity, decline. Revenues and marketing strategies change in accordance with each phase.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to servicing and disposal. PLM could also be referred to a category of software which provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.

Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) gives a customer an alternative – instead of buying the product, buy the result provided by the product. PaaS is a development of product rental or leasing, and transfers more responsibility to the provider.

Online connectivity enables remote access to a product and surrounding instrumentation. Using this connectivity, a provider can offer to operate and maintain a product to deliver outcomes defined in a service level agreement (SLA). For example, instead of buying air compressors, a factory owner may be able to buy compressed air as a service. To deliver this, the provider will need floor space and power connections in the factory. The provider will then install, monitor, control and maintain the compressors to deliver whatever is written into the SLA (for example, 25 psi between 06:00 and 18:00).

Sometimes called Time to Market, Product-Development Cycle is the period of time from the start of design/development work to commercial product availability. The Product Development Cycle is sometimes presented as one of the big-four cycles in a manufacturing organization – the other three are the Production Cycle, the Order Cycle, and the Supply Chain Cycle.

Production Planning seeks to maintain optimum plans to access and use materials, facilities, and resources to make products to satisfy business objectives. Production planning in the manufacturing environment involves the implementation, integration and monitoring of four major elements: scheduling, labour planning, equipment planning, and cost planning. The usual objective is to set and achieve the right production targets using as little resource consumption as possible.

Productivity is a measure of output per hour worked. In national and global level economics, increases in productivity are considered critical to raising living standards.

A programmable logic controller (PLC) is a digital computer used for automation of electromechanical processes, such as control of machinery on factory production lines.

PLCs were developed in the 1970s to offer a more flexible option compared to the hard-wired automation controllers based on relay racks which were dominant at the time.

A Proprietary Format is the design or layout of a data source such as a database when the format is the legal property of one party. If other parties wish to use this format, they need to agree contracts or licenses with the owner. This is in contrast to open format, which follows a published specification and can be used by anyone.

Propylene (also known as propene) is a colorless flammable gas derived from petroleum. It is used as a raw chemical compound to make plastics, fibers, specialty chemicals and isopropyl alcohol.

Propylene Oxide (PO) is a basic chemical used to make polyurethane plastics. Polyurethane is found in appliances, upholstery, seat cushioning, foam products, insulation, construction materials, coatings, adhesives, sealants, antifreeze, footwear and even cosmetics.

Proven reserves are those oil reserves which, based on the available evidence, are virtually certain to be technically and commercially feasible production sources. They have been estimated to have a better than 90% chance of entering production if the decision is made to develop them for that purpose.

A system for controlling workflow and priorities. In a pull system, a process initiates a signal if its inputs run low. This signal goes to the processes which provide those inputs, and triggers them to make or provide more inputs. This concept ensures components and materials are only replaced once they have been consumed. A kanban system is an example of a pull system.

Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) is a petrochemical used to make Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PET is a multitude of products including polyester fiber for textiles, and containers for liquids and foods.

Put Away is the process of moving inbound goods to a final storage location, perhaps in a high-bay warehouse.