What form of manufacturing has jobs pass through functional departments in lots, and each lot may have a different routing?

• A. Intermittent production
• B. Flow production
• C. Job shop
• D. Cellular manufacturing

Answer: (A)

Intermittent production is characterized by equipment arranged by function and work that's released in batches. Because each batch may require different processing steps, the routing through the plant isn’t fixed and can vary from one lot to the next. This flexibility suits low-volume, high-variety scenarios where products aren’t produced on a single, continuous line.

Flow production, by contrast, uses a fixed sequence on a continuous line aimed at high-volume, standardized output—routing doesn’t change by batch. Cellular manufacturing groups machines into cells for families of products, reducing movement within a cell rather than routing through multiple departments in batches. A job shop can have variable routing too, but its hallmark is high variety and smaller runs with flexible, often per-job routing rather than batch-based variation.