Resource Management

What Resource Management covers

Resource management is the fourth section of Theme 2. It covers how a business actually makes what it sells, how hard its capacity is working, how it holds stock without tying up cash or running out, and how it keeps quality high enough to protect the brand.

The 4 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Production, productivity and efficiencyJob, batch, flow and cell production, labour productivity, efficiency and capital intensity, and how each affects competitiveness.Open →
• Capacity utilisationThe capacity utilisation calculation, what under-utilisation does to unit costs and profit, the risks of over-utilisation, and the ways a business raises its utilisation, from marketing and subcontracting to rationalisation.Open →
• Stock controlStock control diagrams, buffer stock, reorder levels and lead times, the costs of poor stock control, just in time management and its risks, and waste minimisation and lean production as sources of competitive advantage.Open →
• Quality managementQuality control against quality assurance, quality circles, Total Quality Management and Kaizen, and how quality builds competitive advantage.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Resource Management further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Job production vs Batch production

  Job production: one customised item completed at a time. Batch production: a specified quantity of identical items completed together.

• Quality control vs Quality assurance

  Quality control: inspection that detects faults in completed output. Quality assurance: systems designed to prevent faults throughout production.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is job production?

   Model answer

   A method where individual, unique products are made one at a time to meet specific customer requirements.

2. 2

   What is batch production?

   Model answer

   A method where a group of identical products moves through each stage of production together before the next batch begins.

3. 3

   What is flow production?

   Model answer

   A method of continuous production where products move along a production line through sequential stages without stopping.

4. 4

   What is cell production?

   Model answer

   A method where the production process is divided into self-contained units (cells), each responsible for completing a significant part of the finished product.

5. 5

   Define productivity.

   Model answer

   How much output each unit of input yields in a given period.

6. 6

   What does the 'input' in the productivity formula typically refer to?

   Model answer

   The quantity of resources used in production, such as labour hours, number of workers, or units of capital employed.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Resource Management revision questions

What does Resource Management cover in Edexcel A-Level Business?

4 subtopics: production, productivity and efficiency, capacity utilisation, stock control and quality management. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Resource Management organised?

By the Edexcel 9BS0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.