The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to production:

Production – act of creating 'use' value or 'utility' that can satisfy a want or need.^[1] The act may or may not include factors of production other than labor. Any effort directed toward the realization of a desired product or service is a "productive" effort and the performance of such act is production.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to production:

Types

• Industry – production of an economic good or service within an economy.^[2] Industry is divided into four sectors, or types of production; they are:

Primary sector

• Primary sector – this involves the extraction of resources directly from the Earth, this includes agricultural and resource extraction industries. In these industries, the product (that is, the focus of production) is a natural resource.
  • Agriculture   (outline) – cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life.^[3]
    • Animal husbandry – agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.
    • Farming – cultivating land for the purpose of agricultural production.
    • Aquaculture – the farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatic plants, algae, and other aquatic organisms.
    • Forestry   (outline) – creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit.^[4]
  • Resource extraction –
    • Fishing – activity of catching or harvesting fish and other aquatic animals such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, and echinoderms.
    • Logging – harvesting timber, including cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars.
    • Mining   (outline) – extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or (coal) seam.
    • Extraction of petroleum – process by which usable petroleum (oil) is extracted and removed from the earth.
    • Extraction of natural gas – Natural gas is commercially extracted from oil fields and natural gas fields.
    • Water industry – provides drinking water to residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy.

Secondary sector

• Secondary sector – involves the processing of raw materials from primary industries, and includes the industries that produce a finished, tangible product.
  • Construction – process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure, including buildings, roads, dams, etc.
  • Manufacturing – process which involves tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. Ranges from handicraft to high tech industrial production.

Tertiary sector

• Tertiary sector – This group is involved in the provision of services. They include teachers, managers and other service providers.

Quaternary sector

• Quaternary sector – the part of the economy that produces knowledge-based services.^[5][6]
  • Information industry –
    • Information generation and sharing –
    • Information technology –
  • Consulting services –
  • Education –
  • Research and development –
  • Financial planning services –

Goals

• Product
• Service

Productivity

• Productivity
  • Benchmarking
  • Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
  • Cost accounting
  • Experience curve effects / Vocational education
  • Operations research
  • Scheduling and queuing theory
  • Throughput accounting
  • Time and motion study

History

• History of industry
  • Industrial Revolution
• History of manufacturing

Theories of production

• Taylorism
• Fordism
• Theory of Constraints
• Toyotism (Lean manufacturing)

Economics

• Factors of production
• Production theory basics
• Outline of industrial organization
• Production function
• Production possibility frontier

Manufacturing

• Manufacturing
• Factory
• English system of manufacturing
• American system of manufacturing
• Scale of production
  • Craft production
  • Mass production
  • Batch production
  • Job production
• Just In Time manufacturing
• Toyota Production System
• Lean production
• Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)
• Mass customization

Product engineering

• Product engineering
  • Industrial and manufacturing engineering
  • Reverse engineering
  • Value engineering

Product design

• Rapid prototyping
• Computer-aided design (CAD)
• New product development
• Research and development
• Toolkits for user innovation

Production technology

• Industrial robot
• Computer-aided manufacturing
• Computer Integrated Manufacturing
• Production equipment control
• Computer numerically controlled
• Distributed Control System
• Fieldbus control system
• PLCs / PLD
• Advanced Planning & Scheduling
• Scheduling (production processes)
• SCADA supervisory control and data acquisition
• computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)
• Packaging and labeling

Machinery

• Machinery
  • Production line
  • Assembly line
  • Conveyor belt
  • Woodworking machinery
  • Metalworking machinery
  • Textile machinery
  • Equipment manufacturer

Machine set-up

• Changeover
• Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)
• Sequence-dependent setup (mathematical)

Lot size and run length

• Economic Lot Scheduling Problem
• Dynamic lot size model
• Economic order quantity
• Economic production quantity
• Economic batch quantity

Service provision

• Service economy
• Service system
• Service design

Logistics

• Logistics
  • Supply chain
  • Supply chain management
  • Procurement or purchasing
  • Inventory
    • Inventory management
    • Reorder point
    • Just In Time

Process improvement

• Systems analysis
  • Process modeling
  • Process optimization
• Quality
  • Quality control
  • Six Sigma
  • Total Quality Management
• Certification Processes and Awards
  • ISO 9000
  • Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (US)
  • Canada Awards for Excellence (National Quality Institute) (Canada)
  • Deming Prize (Japan)
  • Joseph M. Juran Medal (US)
  • Japan Quality Control Medal (Japan)