 |
| D/A transducer |
A device that converts a digital signal into a proportional analog voltage or current. |
| daily management |
The day-to-day activities that are required to serve the customers and ensure that the business is generating profit. |
| dangle |
A project task with no predecessor or successor. |
| dashboard |
A set of metrics, usually not more than five or six, that provide an "at-a-glance" summary of a Six Sigma project's status. Every participant in a Six Sigma deployment -- from the CEO to a factory floor worker -- should have his or her own dashboard with function- and level-appropriate data summaries. |
| data |
Factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation; often refers to quantitative information. |
| data collection |
The manual or automatic acquisition of individual data elements that does not include control or analysis functions. |
| data scrubbing |
The analysis and review of existing data that checks for incomplete records, invalid entries and duplicates. An activity often done prior to converting or merging systems. |
| days sales outstanding (DSO) |
The measure of an organization's collection period and ability to turn sales into cash, as measured by total period accounts receivable divided by total period sales, times number of days in period. |
| days supply of inventory |
Total number of days (if the production level equals zero) that it would takes to deplete finished goods inventory for the specified product line. |
| decentralized |
A system or process that initiates action by end users or locations, rather than by a consolidated central organization that pushes data, goods or services to those points based on its own parameters. |
| decimal precision |
The number of decimal places available for inventory, order, cost and product definition records. |
| decision support system |
A system that provides data, structured models and ad-hoc query tools to enable business decision development and analysis. |
| decision tree |
A decision analysis tool that represents multiple collections of rules in the form of branches on a tree, that lead to a larger value or class. |
| dedicated equipment |
Production facilities reserved for a specific operation, product or family due to process constraints or volume/cost considerations. |
| defect |
Non-fulfillment of a requirement related to an intended or specified use. |
| defect analysis |
The classification of product or process imperfections by source, organizational impact and cost to correct. |
| degrees of freedom |
The number of independent measurements available for estimating a population parameter |
| delivered duty paid (DDP) |
Shipment transaction term specifying that the seller is responsible for all import duties, taxes and charges. |
| Delphi technique |
A decision-making process that uses the opinions of experts, gathered on a dispersed or face-to-face basis, and the guidance and direction of a facilitator to reach either group consensus or a clear definition of alternatives. |
| demand over lead time (DOLT) |
The projected usage of a component or other material over the replenishment lead time. A predictable usage rate is assumed when calculating lot sizes and reorder levels based on lead time demand. |
| demand pattern |
The characterization of product demand in terms of regularity, volume and timing that determine company policies in creating forecast, inventory reorder and lot size parameters. |
| demand response |
The methods used to respond to outside product demand that include producing to stock or to order, fill rate % and other targets. |
| Deming's 14 points |
A series of 14 points by W. Edwards Deming that propose improving quality by emphasizing management commitment, employee training, eliminating slogans and posters that solely emphasize productivity, inter- departmental cooperation and other related factors. |
| demonstrated capacity |
Resource availability based on actual past performance used for planning future requirements. |
| density |
1. A physical property of materials measured as mass per unit volume. 2. The weight of a substance for a specified volume at a definite temperature, for example, grams per cubic centimeter at 200C. 3. Closeness of texture or consistency. |
| density function |
The function which yields the probability that a particular random variable takes on any one of its possible values. |
| dependability |
Collective term used to describe the availability performance and its influencing factors: reliability performance, maintainability performance and maintenance support performance. |
| dependent demand |
Demand for components and material calculated, or dependent, on the demand from another item in the system and not due to outside demand such as a customer or interplant order for that item. The demand is derived from exploding an upper level bill of material, as opposed to generating a forecast for the dependent demand item. |
| dependent events |
Events that occur only after a previous event. |
| dependent variable |
A Response Variable; e.g., y is the dependent or "Response" variable where Y=f (Xl. . . XN) variable. |
| depreciation |
A charge against earnings that does not involve a cash payment for the write-off of the cost of an asset less salvage value over its estimated useful life. A variety of depreciation methods have been developed to specify the rate and amount of the write-off for each fiscal period. |
| derivative control |
In process instrumentation, control action in which the output is proportional to the rate of change of the input. |
| design and development |
Set of processes that transforms requirements into specified characteristics or into the specification of a product, process or system. |
| design failure mode and effects analysis (DFMEA) |
An analytical technique used by a design responsible engineer/team as a means to assure, to the extent possible, that potential failure modes and, their associated causes/mechanisms have been considered and addressed. |
| design for manufacturability and assembly |
A simultaneous engineering process designed to optimize the relationship between design function, manufacturability, and ease of assembly. |
| design for test |
A design process that creates products and processes with automatic or integrated test and measurement systems. |
| design input |
The physical and performance requirements of a device that are used as a basis for device design. |
| design of experiment |
Planning and conducting experiments and evaluating the results. The outcome of a design of experiment includes a mathematical equation predicting the interaction of the factors influencing a process and the relevant output characteristics of the process. |
| design review |
A documented, comprehensive, systematic examination of a design to evaluate the adequacy of the design requirements, to evaluate the capability of the design to meet these requirements, and to identify problems. |
| design to order |
syn: engineer to order (ETO) |
| design validation |
Testing to ensure that product conforms to defined user needs and/or requirements. Design validation follows successful design verification and is normally performed on the final product under defined operating conditions. Multiple validations may be performed if there are different intended uses. |
| design verification |
Testing to ensure that all design outputs meet design input requirements. Design verification may include activities such as:
- Design review
- Performing alternate calculations
- Understanding tests and demonstrations
- Review of design stage documents before release
|
| design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA) |
A way of improving cost, quality, and safety of the manufacturing and assembly processes by design. |
| detection or inspection |
A past-oriented strategy that attempts to identify unacceptable output after it has been produced and separate it from the good output. (See Prevention and Nonconforming.) |
| detrend |
In forecasting models, the process of removing an underlying upward or downward trend to present a normalized baseline view of the demand. |
| deviation |
The difference between the value of a specific variable and some desired value, usually a process set point. |
| deviation permit |
Written authorization, prior to production or provision of a service, to depart from specified requirements for a specified quantity or for a specified time. [2] |
| DFA |
See design for assembly |
| DFM |
See design for manufacturing |
| DFMEA |
See design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis |
| digital signal |
A discrete or discontinuous signal; often one whose various states are discrete intervals apart. |
| DIN |
Germany Standards Institute |
| direct cost |
Variable material and labor costs that can be directly traced and allocated to a specific unit of production. |
| direct issue |
An issue to a specific production order based on the authorization created by generating a pick slip. Material is pulled from stock, immediately deducted from on-hand and transferred to the category of work in process, as opposed to backflush systems that reduce on-hand inventory at a later date based on calculated component usage when the parent item is reported. |
| direct labor |
Labor costs directly attributed to the production of specific units that includes wages and associated fringe benefits. |
| directed putaway |
A function in inventory management and warehouse management (WMS) systems that specify how to stock received material based on volume, open locations, product size and weight, segregation of hazardous materials and other parameters. |
| discrete event |
A measurable, individual transaction or status change with specific start and end timing that can be attributed as a source of requirements or a trigger for other events. |
| discrete lot size |
syn: lot-for-lot. |
| discrete manufacturing |
A manufacturing environment often characterized by individual, separate unit production, low unit volume, high product complexity, variable lead times and production to order vs. to stock. |
| discrete random variable |
A random variable which can assume values only from a definite number of discrete values. |
| discriminate analysis |
A statistical test technique that examines the set of variables or predictors associated with a given subject and uses similarities and differences to assign the subject to a group or class. |
| dispatch list |
A production prioritization schedule for a given work center that lists orders in the exact sequence they should be produced, based on due date, critical ratio, or other considerations. |
| distance learning |
Systems that deliver education and training from a centralized source to remote locations. They may be real-time or periodic, and include methods for interaction, testing and student feedback. |
| distribution |
The population (universe) from which observations are drawn, categorized into cells, and form identifiable patterns. It is based on the concept of variation that states that anything measured repeatedly will arrive at different results. These results will fall into statistically predictable patterns. A bell-shaped curve (normal distribution) is an example of a distribution in which the greatest number of observations occur in the center with fewer and fewer observations falling evenly on either side of the average. |
| distribution center |
A facility that stores inventory and ships finished goods orders to customers for a specific geographic area. Its stock is replenished on a periodic basis by manufacturing plants or other distribution centers, and it may process customer returns but does not have production capabilities. |
| distribution network |
The description of distribution facilities and organizations serving as supply and replenishment points for given product lines and specifying the lead times and transportation methods between those points. |
| distribution resource planning (DRP) |
The function of planning inventory levels, supply and replenishment logic, and demand response for an organization's distribution network. After defining the network, orders and forecasts at distribution facilities that drive projected stock levels below the reorder point trigger a suggested replenishment order from the supply source, based on lead time and lot size parameters. Each distribution point passes demand to the next supply source, which is either a vendor, another distribution center or a manufacturing plant. DRP also incorporates logistics resource planning, and is sometimes described as MRP for a finished goods network. |
| distributor |
A third party that purchases, stocks and resells products manufactured by another organization. While classified as a customer to the manufacturer, it is normally useful to track distributor shipments to the end consumer to evaluate demand patterns and changes. |
| DMAIC methodology |
The cycle of steps designated as define, measure, analyze, improve, control used to examine a process or product in the six sigma quality improvement methodology. |
| DOE |
Design of Experiments |
| dollarize |
The conversion of real or projected order and inventory unit data to dollars based on standard cost, list price, average selling price or other methods. |
| downstream pull system |
See Pull System. |
| downtime |
Periods when a resource is not available, either on a scheduled basis or due to unforeseen causes such as breakdown. |
| draft |
A financial document that directs payment from a person, or more typically a bank, and may be authorized to provide automatic payments for a consecutive number of invoices or cycles. |
| drill down |
Application features that allow progression from a summarized, general level to the detailed transactions and data comprising the totals. |
| drop ship |
Directing a vendor to send purchased material directly to a third party instead of delivering to the owner's facility for inspection or stocking. |
| drum-buffer-rope |
A technique that attempts to manage production flow through the identification of a bottleneck that sets the pace of releasing materials to production (drum), a buffer inventory to ensure continued operation of the bottleneck, and the system to control communications and information flow from the drum to the material release point (rope). |
| due date |
A calculated or manually-entered date that defines when material or production is required to be available for use. |
| dunning |
An accounts receivable function that uses an escalating series of notices and defined verbiage to document the contacts and attempts made in collecting payment from a customer. Evidence of the attempts are a legal requirement in certain countries if claims are made for unpaid bills. |
| durability |
The probability that an item will continue to function at customer expectation levels, at the useful life without requiring overhaul or rebuild due to “wear-out”. |
| dynamic lot size |
A lot size quantity that changes for successive orders of the same item based on cost, number of days supplied or optimization parameters. |
