What are products? Definition and classification

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:45

Everyone who produces something with his own hands or at the enterprise knows what a product is. However, people who are far from industry do not always understand this definition itself. From this publication, readers will not only be able to find out the explanation of this term, but also understand the types and classification of products based on different parameters.

Explanations

According to the regulatory framework and GOST approved by government services under the number 2.101-68, you can find out what a product is. This is, first of all, a piece item (a part or a finished product) or a set of different items produced in production and suitable for subsequent assembly.

Products are usually counted as units of production, sometimes - copies. The main reason for such a clear terminology is the need to maintain documentation at enterprises (manufacturing, warehouse, providing intermediate storage of products) and in companies involved in the sale of products.

To avoid confusion and substitution of concepts, there is a clear systemaccording to which all products are divided into specific types, depending on their purpose, configuration and stage of release (development, testing or established production).

Part of the product

In order to make it easier to understand what a product is, you need to understand what it consists of, what is its structure:

• A detail is a product that is made from only one type of material and a single, inseparable object. It is allowed to use additional or post-processing, but this should only be an improvement of the product (chrome plating, paint, varnish, etc.), and not its processing or modernization. In this case, it will already be its new look.
• Assembly unit - these are elements of one product that require the use of measures to assemble and compose a single whole. But the complex is two (possibly more) separately manufactured parts of one product, which, as a result, must interact, but their assembly does not require connection using special equipment. The production of products of a complex type also involves the additional configuration of the main subject of production with special items. For example, it can be fasteners, tools, containers or packaging material.
• A set means a number of items manufactured or supplied in one set, they can be used both separately and together, complement each other (a set of dishes, a set of wrenches).

Classification

There is a fairly extensive classification of items of production by type, each of which explains the purpose, method of creation and characteristics of products:

1. Products of the main production are items that are produced at enterprises for the final consumer, with the aim of their further sale.
2. Production of products for auxiliary needs. They are necessary for the work of the organization itself or the industrial group associated with it, cooperation.

In addition, there are also groups of consumers for which this or that product is designed. This is a rather broad and conditional classification of items of production, but it well demonstrates the structure of consumption of goods:

• Products suitable for meeting national economic needs - export, the general population, conducting economic activities within the state.
• Products for industrial purposes - when a factory of products of this category is established, it works mainly for certain enterprises according to a strictly limited range and strict standards.
• Products to meet consumer demand.
• Items, parts or complexes that are manufactured and delivered according to an approved plan for a particular customer.
• Products for the company's own needs.

There is also a breakdown by the number of produced copies - single (repeated and one-time), serial, mass production.

What areproducts?

When debugging production, as well as the subsequent operation of the line, technologists and controllers need to clearly monitor the quality of products. To do this, they need to correctly determine what a product is, what its normal appearance is, and when adjustments should be made to the operation of the enterprise. Production items are divided into suitable and defective. The first are made in accordance with all the requirements stated in the technical documentation. Defective refers to any part or component with a clear non-compliance with the specified standards.

Other signs of product quality include:

• completeness, which is installed according to the instructions and accompanying documentation;
• newness (obsolete or modern);
• level of technology.

Who makes the products?

The main objects of production of various kinds of products are specially equipped enterprises - plants, factories, workshops. Their work is debugged and standardized - enterprises of this level work most often in a planned manner. Adjustment of new lines, modernization of existing ones often also occur according to the schedule, as large enterprises do not accept major adjustments to their work.

However, there are craftsmen who produce single items with their own hands. These are items that are not consumer goods and demand, but are made to order according to predetermined parameters.

Product development

All products, regardless of their purpose, go through certain stages of production. The very first is development. It is handled by dedicated engineering departments.

But the design and subsequent production of products on the line is impossible without the coordination of intermediate stages and options. Among the most significant are:

• simulation followed by testing;
• creating a layout and its testing, improvement;
• execution of the product with subsequent collection and analysis of the results;
• creation of norms, names and characteristics for the finished product.

Finished products may have different possibilities for subsequent operation, so some are repairable, others are not. Most often, this factor determines whether the model of the item is collapsible or solid, which also determines the possibility of after-sales service.