Assessing the Efficiency of Pilot Production in Industry

Yuliya L. Maslennikova – Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Logistics, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education «Bauman Moscow State Technical University», Candidate of Technical Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Alla E. Brom – Professor in the Department of Industrial Logistics, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education «Bauman Moscow State Technical University», Doctor of Technical Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The paper is devoted to outlining approaches to assessing the efficiency of pilot production. The authors take production cycle time as a measure of production process efficiency. The paper considers the main reserves and areas of the production cycle reduction; it gives the ways of estimating the economic effect and efficiency of shortening the duration of the production cycle at large-scale and mass productions; the necessity of using other evaluation methods for pilot-scale production is substantiated, which is connected with its specifics. The article presents approaches to estimation which take into account factors of accelerated development of production and reduction of defects.

Due to the fact that pilot production is characterized by binding of a large volume of floating assets in unfinished production, the approach to estimation of the effect of release of floating assets under the conditions of reduction of production cycle is proposed. Finally, the potential advantages and disadvantages of maintaining a high inventory level in pilot production are described.

Key words: pilot production, economic effects, economic efficiencies, production cycle, work in progress, working capital.

JEL-codes: L23, C13, D24.