Household He is a good bookkeeper but unfortunately he is lacking in judgement and he only looks to the profits which the company is making in an increasing measure. He fails to warn the Smiths that the company must be maintained in a profitearning condition, that it is no use making an increasing number of trailers with a diminishing profit on each trailer. The business has also ploughed back considerable profits and has paid little reward to its friends the squire and the doctor and their friends who helped the Smiths in their hour of need. This in itself might not have mattered if it had not been that the growing prosperity and turnover of the Smiths' business has been watched with envious eyes by the very much larger company of County Trailers Ltd which operates in the neighbouring town. County Trailers Ltd see their opportunity and they offer to buy the shares from the squire and the doctor at a price which is most attractive in relation to the dividends which they have been receiving, but which is yet considerably below the accumulated assets of the Smiths' business. The squire and the doctor naturally do not wish to do anything to hurt the Smiths, but the offer is so attractive that they cannot resist it and they sell their shares. The Smiths have been eclipsed by a takeover bid. PRODUCTION The production function of any enterprise, be it a coal mine, motor factory, or local government, is both the deciding and the limiting factor in its conduct. The ability to produce must therefore be a major consideration when the performance, standards, and targets of the business are set. The management of production as discussed in this chap ter includes the whole function or process of manufacture, and can be said to be the science of producing the right itl goods in the right quantities at the right time to the right people. To achieve this impeccable objective the optimum use of men, machines, and materials must be made : to guarantee its achievement is a management task. The management of production is not, however, an end in itself, it is a means to an end, the means whereby the ultimate arbiter, the public, is satisfied. Every day brings an increasing need for better and more efficient management of production. Technical progress in this spectacular Space Age with the necessity for more intricate and complex designs; the need for full employment with the expanding internal economy of the U.K.; even fuller emancipation of labour; all require that production must be managed in the full sense of the word. Thus, the management of production involves the co ordination of the functions of Development, Design, Planning, and Manufacture. The detailed techniques by which these functions are carried out depend in the main on the scale or type of manufacture. These can be conveniently divided into three main categories: process production, largebatch and mass production, and smallbatch and unit production. homemoney to purchasehow