2. Buying and Assembling:
It involves what to buy, of what quality, how much from whom, when and at what price. People in business buy to increase sales or to decrease costs. Purchasing agents are much influenced by quality, service and price.
The products that the retailers buy for resale are determined by the needs and preferences of their customers. A manufacturer buys raw materials, spare parts, machinery, equipment’s, etc. for carrying out his production process and other related activities. A wholesaler buys products to resell them to the retailers.
Assembling means to purchase necessary component parts and to fit them together to make a product. ‘Assembly line’ indicates a production line made up of purely assembly operations. The assembly operation involves the arrival of individual component parts at the work place and issuing of these parts to be fastened together in the form of an assembly or sub-assembly.
Assembly line is an arrangement of workers and machines in which each person has a particular job and the work is passed directly from one worker to the next until the product is complete. On the other hand, ‘fabrication lines’ implies a production line made up of operations that form or change the physical or sometimes chemical characteristics of the product involved.