Research Paper on:
Meeting Demands by Changing Manufacturing Plants

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
and characteristically use power driven machines and materials handling equipment. Establishments engaged in assembling component parts of manufactured products are also considered manufacturing if the new product is neither a  structure nor other fixed improvement" (Division D. Manufacturing, 2001). The product life cycle affects all manufacturing plants. The product life cycle concept is a model that shows the trends of  unit sales of a specific product from the time it is first placed on the market until it is removed from the market (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). It is  sometimes depicted in a bell- or S-shaped curve, divided into several time-oriented stages. The length of any stage and the shape of the overall curve varies from product to product  but most follow some sort of product life cycle curve (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). The product life cycle is typically described in four stages: introduction; growth; maturity;  and decline (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). The product life cycle does not automatically occur with the passage of time (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). Instead, it results  from the interaction of several variables that include external conditions, such as market demand factors, in addition to the companys marketing efforts (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). Even when  sales begin leveling off or decreasing, the company still has alternative strategies they can implement to prolong the products sales cycle (Rink, Roden and Fox, 1999). For instance, the company  can add different features, change colors, redesign the product, change the promotional campaign or identify a new target market. Forecasting the market demand, then, is an essential aspect of manufacturing  because it, in effect, forecasts which stage in the product life cycle any given product is at that time. Using the chemical industry as one example, the American Institute of