Your Manufacturing (Assembling) Chain

Your manufacturing, assembling, or creation process is composed of each step-by-step item you need to do with or to your inputs (raw materials) to make what you are selling. Let’s take an example: baking a cake (see Table 8.1).

Table 8.1. Manufacturing Chain Example: Baking a Cake

The purpose of the manufacturing chain is to illuminate all the details—the steps you need to undertake and all the parts and supplies you need to do the job. Managing the business is the process of "changing inputs into outputs."

We left out a key component in our cake example—didn’t we?

Yes, we also must include the step-by-step instructions for how to make the cake (see Figure 8.2). These instructions have to be written down clearly enough that an employee who does not know how to make a cake could understand and follow them. This will be your manual, so you have to write it in a simple form so that anyone can follow it.