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Is Manufacturing and Production the same?

Aug 4, 2023

1 min read

Is Manufacturing and Production the same? Short answer: No.


This is why we use the term "production" in Mikon, and not "manufacturing". In fact, the Mikon software family cover both!


The key difference is that manufacturing is the process of converting raw material into the tangible products, whereas production is the process of transforming inputs into outputs, both tangible and intangible. In fact, intangible services like what lawyers produce (!) is production in the theory of economics.


Two examples from Mikon customers:


  1. Norgips is producing plasterboards. This is manufacturing, and Mikon is used for complete traceability throughout the process, enabling their personnel to increase efficiency, help their continuous work on process improvements, complaints handling, etc.

  2. OMV Norway is an oil & gas company, extracting oil & gas from the underground reservoirs. They don't manufacture anything, but they are certainly producing (at a value of 9 billion NOK=1 billion USD). They use Mikon for reporting their production, following up budgets and forecasts, etc.


All manufacturing is production, but not all production is manufacturing. And not all production is industrial. With Mikon, we cover Industrial Production, so now you probably understand why we refer to "Mikon Industrial Reporting Systems".



A poster comparing aspects of Manufacturing and Production
Manufacturing vs. Production

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