Farm-Produce Business:
Implementing Production Operations
The Farm-Produce Business venture, as already observed, is an Extended Enterprise System. More specifically, the production function is in a way "outsourced" to the farming entity. However, as advanced already, the business still must support production operations which are the ancillary support of the strict production processes. As noted a starting business is complete only when the three critical dimensions: Product, Production and Marketing; of Market Participation have been fully established; and so far, only the Product and Marketing dimensions have been addressed. The Product dimension was addressed through the Product-Offered Product Design undertaking, while the Marketing dimension was addressed in the Market Participation Planning presentation, leaving only the Production dimension to be addressed. In a sense then, a set of activities that may be deemed to constitute the production tasks still need to be formalized. Of course, this is natural of all ventures: The exiting of ventures ideas from the Embryonic Stage must always be accompanied with the formation of the Production Group of activities.
Often, a venture exiting from an Embryonic Stage converts the entire Embryonic Stage team into the production group to undertake the production functions and related activities. In keeping with the norms, the subsistence farmer collective must also adopt this reasoning. Take a list of the activities performed post-harvests and then identify those operations that are not intrinsically tied to the farming process. Next draw a circle to represent the operations of the farming operations, but separate out the operations identified to one side of the circle and the rest to the other side opposite the each other. Next draw another circle that cuts the first circle while extending beyond the first circle. So now the two circled cut each other and has a region of overlap. That overlap, often called intersect of the two circles, should contain all the activities that are not tied to the farming process. By default those are define as part of the production operations of the Farm-Produce Business. Next in the section of the second circle not overlapping with the first circle, are written down all the operations that are unique to marketing and product packaging operations. Upon completion, the listing of the activities in the second circle invariably defines the production operations of the Farm Produce Business entity.
With respect to identifying the activities, which are differentially unique to the Farm Produce Business relative to the farming activities, the packaging of the products as defined by the specifications of the Product-Offered Product Design is an obvious activity. So all matters related to the performing of the packaging that required both reproducibility and repeatability for the purposes of asserting the brand must be listed as a production activity. Some of these activities of product packaging will fall under Quality Assurance and Control. Then there is the matter of delivery of the Product-Offered to the buyers depending on the product features as being promoted. The Delivery Operations includes both the product design and the product shipping; with respect to the latter, an object of interest would be ensuring that the product gets delivered undamaged. So then the means of transportation would be of relevant consideration as well.
Effectively warehousing, quality control, and what-have-you before the decision to create the Farm-Produce Business Fall within the intersect region of the productions operations Venn diagram. So these activities by default would replicated in the production operations of the Farm Produce Business operations; and in keeping with the norm, the staffs who had been working as the farm help in those activities are halved, with one-half of the two being converted into the same role in the Farm-Produce Business forming the Production Operations Group. Also until the production operations processes have been fully formed and established the farmer-entrepreneur assumes the mantle of the Production Manager in the immediate, though to be changed at a later date with a permanent staff. The business process as such must be formed quickly, and may include such tasks as record keeping, say inventory Management, shipping and delivery records, Quality Control and Assurance measures and records, etc must all be designed and used by the staff. Delineations of these activities are instructive to the extent that such helps establish the scope of activities required to maintain acceptable standards and practices of the industry or for the industry.
Quality Control and Assurance will take on the two challenges of Control of incoming deliveries and the Assurance of outgoing delivery. Then, of course, the Quality Assurance is of two forms: Visual and touch testing for the singular reseller and then there may be the case of the testing labs for the cooperative which must ship lab certified products without recipients first hand checks. This places a certain burden on the entity in requiring that the reports of the lab tests be of formalized structure and also be enclosed in the shipping order as to be delivered to the buyers with each fulfillment of sales order. The materials used for the packaging also have to be monitored for quality both in preservation of the product-quality as well as absence of potential for toxic health effects. Of course, such concerns also makes the handling and stocking of these materials as matters of concerns to the extent that the quality of the materials are not impaired as to create the potential for toxic effects including food poisoning.
Though implicit, worth eliciting that some of the operations of Quality Control and Assurance get split off, and get embedded within the scope of Shipping and Receiving Operations. Clearly acceptance of the delivery of shipments of the produce will be predicate on the state of the produce being in a certain agreed upon quality. So then, the task of receiving will absorb part of the Quality Control operations as to perform all necessary tests as designed for quality assurance before being accepted, and hence marked as received. On the flip-side, shipments due to be shipped to customers also can not be shipped or products placed on the store shelves for purchases by buyers until the Quality Assurance tests of the products have been performed and the requisite quality ascertained for each batch.
Despite all the measures of Quality Control and Assurance implemented some of the products will become damaged while in the warehouse, while in transit to delivery even if from accidents of sorts, while being packaged for shipment or what-have-you. These damages are reflected through the financial performance of the entity but also in terms of product availability to prospective buyers. The issue of availability is somewhat of more immediate concerns in the fulfillment of sales orders and is often given operational attention, as in the form of Inventory Management. This production operation addresses the record-keeping needs of product availability, produce-deliveries by the farm, and product shipments to or off-the-shelf purchases by buyers. Significantly it provides cross-links to shipping reports of damages and inventory adjustments of product damages while in the warehouse. Besides it reconciles availability with QA certified deliveries of produce. So this operation to a great extent serves as a tie between several of the operations.
These delineated production related activities though proffered as essential constituents of the production operations of the Farm Produce Business, are by no means comprehensive and do not exhaust the list of possible activities; additional operations may yet be elicited from insight into the venture development tasks of the business as gained from keeping apprised with the contents of the posts, also published in this same platform, of the Green Subsistence Farming that provides the context for identifying the necessary operations which the farmer entrepreneur is certainly challenged to identify as being essential activities, and implement as part of the production operations.