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HACCP: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points - the evaluation of potential sources of failure in a product under design - see also FMECA.
HAL: Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, famously the "name" of the errant computer in Arthur C.Clarke's story 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Hallertauer: a type of schwundgeld originating in November 2004 in Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria, Germany.
Hanami: a social or business party organised in Japan to view the cherry blossom, the cherry blossom marking the eagerly awaited beginning of Spring and the start of the new school year. It is also the time when new employees are taken on in companies. Companies and clubs typically organise hanami as bonding occasions. They are not necessarily sober.
Harmonic-Analysis: see Fourier Analysis.
Hash-Total: One way of checking that a set of records or documents is complete, and that no individual document is missing, is to select an arbitrary data field on the record or document containing a number, the field selected being present on each record or document, and calculate the arithmetical total of such fields. This total is the hash total. Later, to double check that all records and documents remain complete, the fields are again added and the total again checked against the hash total. If a document is missing, the newly computed total will not equal the hash total. Note that the field on the document does not have to be a numeric variable, and the hash total does not have to make sense. For example, the birthdays of 3 people may be the 12th, the 9th and the 22nd , yielding a hash total of 43. Later, if the document relating to the person born on the 22nd is missing, the new total will be 21 - ie not equal to the established hash total .
Haulier: A company which transports goods on behalf of customers needing such a service.
Hauling: see kitting.
Hay Guide Chart: The Hay Guide Charts are the central instrument of a proprietory point-factor job evaluation procedure devised and administered by the Hay Group (in the UK, known as Hay-MSL). The Hay Group was founded in 1943 in Philadelphia, PA, by Ned Hay. In the Hay system, the individual requirements needed in the performance of a job are regarded as universal, and are termed factors, these being sub-divided into "dimensions". The three universal factors are said to be: know-how; problem solving; and accountability. The dimensions within each factor vary - three examples of dimensions within the know-how factor are (1) depth and range of technical knowledge; (2) breadth of management know-how; and (3) human relations skills. Each dimension as it applies to a specific job is split as to the degree to which it applies (the degree of application is referred to as a graduation). The Hay Guide Chart itself comprises a ready-made points system, so that after job evaluation in terms of factors, dimensions and graduation, job scores can simply be read from the chart. The Hay system is used worldwide and is by far the most popular of the point-factor schemes.
HAZOP: Hazard and Operability Studies, a term encountered in design quality and failure avoidance.
HDB: High Density Printed Board.
HDD: Hard Disk Drive.
HDI: High Density Interconnect.
HEA: Harsh Environment - Automobile, or Health & Education Authority (UK).
Health & Safety: The existence of a safe and healthy working environment, its provision being prime moral and legal imperatives of the company. See H&SAWA.
Hedge: In the commodities market, a hedge is the action taken by a buyer to protect himself against a price rise or the action taken by a seller to protect himself against a price fall. See "Future" and see "Speculator".
Hedging: If it is required to buy commodities such as oil, copper or raspberries at a future date, the danger exists that at the future date when they are required, their price will be higher than the current price. One way the buyer can protect himself from this is to buy a "future" right to purchase the commodity (see Futures in the Glossary). When the time comes, the buyer sells his future on the commodity market. If, in the meantime, the price of the commodity has risen, he will make a profit on the future (over the originally agreed price). This profit will more or less match the extra money he has to pay for the physical material wanted. The downside is that if, on the contrary, the price of the commodity has fallen, when he sells his future, he will make a loss. However, because he is also paying less for the material, overall he will break even. The process is called hedging. By hedging with futures, the buyer protects himself against future price increases, but blocks himself from being able to gain advantage from price falls. Similarly, the salesman protects himself from price falls, but blocks himself from price rises. The operators in the futures market are either hedgers or speculators (qv). The industrial buyer or salesman must never speculate, and, in a very real sense, doing nothing about the requirement to buy or sell a particular commodity in the future is speculation.
Hedonic Scale: In the OED, hedonics is defined as the science of pleasure. An hedonic scale is one indicating pleasure and displeasure - for example, 0 on the scale might mean "very unpleasant", and 10 mean "sheer ectasy". If the scale is being used so that consumers can register their reactions on a form, say in a market survey of food taste, it is helpful to display a sad face next to the 0 and a smiley face next to the 10.
Heijunka: A Japanese word for "smoothing the waves of production", or, in more prosaic terms, setting up an even flow of manufactured product by establishing a succession of very small batches of production throughout the factory chain of manufacture. Accomplishing this is a major goal of Just-in-Time, or lean, manufacturing, and must be supported by fast set-ups and group-oriented plant layout. A heijunka box is a literal box in which is placed the withdrawal kanbans relating to the days production in a Just-in-Time production system.
HEM: Harsh Environment - Military.
HEMT: High Electron Mobility Transfer.
Heuristic: In scheduling, an heuristic is a mathematically based search algorithm employed to determine a production schedule. More generally, a heuristic is any pragmatic procedure leading to an answer to an operational research question. An heuristic has also been defined as a rule of thumb that works! An example of a simple heuristic is a dynamic despatching rule such as the Critical Ratio rule or the SPT rule. See also Meta-Heuristic.
Hidden Factory, The: The hidden factory expresses the notion that much of the endeavour of the company that is not quality minded is directed inadvertently to creating waste and performing wasteful tasks - examples of wasteful activities are the production of non-conforming products and the holding of excessive stock. The hidden factory is the extra useful, positive output that would theoretically be possible if the energy directed at creating waste were released and directed instead at making good quality items. In 1977, the quality guru Armand Feigenbaum estimated the endeavour within the hidden factory might be 15% to 40% of total company effort. The notion of the hidden factory is bound up with the metric COPQ (cost of poor quality). The COPQ may be estimated by multiplying the number of defects per period of time by the average unit cost to fix a defect (labour and materials). Such a sterile calculation however omits such costs as loss of goodwill and loss of competitiveness, and such other matters as warranty costs and even legal damages.
Hierarchical Forecasting: See Forecasting (Hierarchical).
Hierarchy: A structure comprised of layers, or levels, each successively lower layer being subordinate in some way to the layer above it. In terms of management and the corporate organisation, the highest layer of the company hierarchy comprises the managing director. At Layer 2 are other members of the board. At Layer 3 below the board are heads of department, and so on downwards to the most junior levels. The advantages of an hierarchical organisation in terms of human resource management are: its ease of formation; the clarity it gives to lines of command; and the flexibility of management that it confers. An hierarchical management is said to be mechanistic (qv).
HIFO: Highest In, First Out - a stock rotation system whereby the most expensive stock is issued first.
Hire Purchase (HP): Similar to a leasing arrangement, but with two differences: (i) the company using the goods takes possession of them as owner at the end of the payment period; and (ii) the using company is also permitted to depreciate the goods over the time it pays for them. Since the company putting up the goods is consequently not able to depreciate them, unlike a lessor, it will make a higher charge to compensate. See sub-section 3.4.2 of the free on-line purchasing course at this site.
Histogram: A graph of vertical bars illustrating how the values of some particular phenomenon are distributed among all the possible values the phenomenon could take. On the horizontal axis of the graph are the ranges of the values, set out on the scale of the axis as so-called "class intervals". For example, the class intervals for people's ages might be 0 - 9, 10 - 15, 16 - 25, 26 - .... On the vertical axis of the histogram is the percentage (or number, or fraction) of values in each particular class. For example, 20% of all age values of the population of a town might fall in the 16 - 25 class. Consequently, the area of the bar on the histogram above the 16 - 25 class would be drawn such that it was 20% of the total area of all the bars on the total graph.
The Hockey Stick Theory: A now discredited theory by one Michael Mann relating to Global Warming.
Hold Order (noun): A works order on which work has been suspended for some reason by management (eg due to the non-payment of his account by the customer).
Homologation: In manufacturing industry, the action of ensuring that a raw material that has been received has indeed originated from a specific certified supplier.
Honeycombing: the often unavoidable creation of 'interstices', or empty spaces, within a stock storage system, perhaps due to partial pallet loads or depleted rows. The honeycombing factor is (net calculated capacity)/(gross storage capacity), and might take a value of 0.8 (though much higher in a fixed location storage system). A honeycombing factor cannot be calculated merely from (actual capacity)/(theoretical capacity), since there are many other reasons for the existence of empty space in a stores or warehouse. See sub-sections 1.2.6, 1.2.7 and 1.4 of the free on-line 'course' on stores/warehouse operations at this site.
Horizon (Forecast): in order to act as input to the master scheduling process, demand forecasts must be prepared out to the master schedule horizon, plus one month. (The extra month is needed because the master scheduling period begins after the instant in which the forecasts are prepared, even if that is only one day later.) See also bootstrapping.
Horizon (Master Schedule): The period ahead for which the master schedule must be formulated. The minimum period of time is the sum of these two elements: (1) the maximum cumulative leadtime of materials manufacture, including the time to acquire raw materials*, and (2) the master schedule review period. Companies setting their MPS horizon too short will find that there are material and raw material requirement "past due" after they have performed the materials explosion of the master schedule. Companies setting it unnecessarily far out will create material plans which are unnecessarily far out in the future and which will consume computer time to no useful purpose. (*See purchasing time horizon.)
Hoshin Planning, or Hoshin Kanri: "Policy Deployment", or "Management by Strategy Deployment" - a term meaning the constant referral in setting goals and objectives, and in deciding measures of performance, to the declared overall strategic and policy aims of the enterprise. Hoshin is Japanese for "pointing the way" and Kanri means simply "management policy".
Hot List: A list of items which are urgently required for a current works order, the list having been compiled by informal means and requiring progress chasers to commence a search for them. The items are likely to be recorded in a little black book!
House of Quality: In QFD (qv), it is common to draw up a matrix of Customer Requirements x Product/Service Features, indicating on the intersections of the matrix the degree the particular feature contributes to the customer's requirement. A very detailed version of the matrix can then be drawn up in the form of a block diagram bearing references to the original matrix. The diagramatic form of the block diagram, comprising blocks on top of other blocks, have lead to its being called a House of Quality.
HOV: High Occupancy Vehicle.
HP: (1) High Performance, or (2) Hosin Planning (qv), or (3) Hire Purchase, or (4) Hewlett Packard, or (5) HP Sauce.
HPCC: High Performance Computing and Communications.
HPPS: High Performance Product Sector.
HPV: High Production Volume.
HR: see Human Resources.
HRM: Human Resources Management - see Human Resources.
HRXpert: A software package intended to assist a company in its application of the Hay Guide Chart (qv) and the Hay point-factor job evaluation system.
H&SAWA: The Health & Safety At Work Act, 1974 - The original UK legislation arising from the Robens Report, published in 1972 (latest legislation 1992 and 1999). The Act is what is known as enabling legislation, and led to the establishment of the HSC (Health & Safety Commission) and the HSE (Health & Safety Executive). Although there are those who claim that the Act has brought about great improvements in industrial safety, there are others who believe that it has been something of a disaster, and has achieved the exact opposite of the objectives set out in the original Robens Report. These were (1) that there was too much law, it was too complex, and that matters should be simplified, (2) that the emphasis of legislation should shift from being "prescriptive" to being "goal setting". The red tape and regulation entangling industry, now added to by yet more destructive nonsense from the EU, threaten to cripple the UK's competitive position. Unfortunately, criticising anything with the words "Health & Safety" in its name is equated by some classes of people as advocating child abuse. See also COSHH.
HSC: Health & Safety Commission, a UK body. The HSC is empowered to write framework law in the field of industrial health and safety, and write its accompanying regulations and codes of practice. While there is a requirement to consult with industrial companies (a cosy arrangement), proposals are passed on a minister's signature without the scrutiny of Parliament. See also The Health & Safety Executive.
HSE: Health & Safety Executive, a UK body. The HSE is empowered to appoint factory inspectors and to investigate premises and the circumstances of accidents. The HSE may bring prosecutions before the courts. Question: How many HSE Inspectors does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: None - it's too dangerous.
HSM: Hierarchical Storage Monitor.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
Hub: the dictionary definition of a "hub", apart from being the central, solid part of a wheel, is a central point of revolution, activity, life, interest etc.. This definition is not far from the many alternative uses of the word in logistics. That is, in logistics, a hub may be a point at the centre of many distribution routes where goods are received, consolidated, stored and despatched to other sites. Strictly, in formal distribution planning, a hub is a node. In communications technology, a hub is an alternative name for a router, especially one distributing other services such as Internet telephony and TV.
HUD: Heads Up Display.
Human Capital Management: A number of consultants who wish to appear ahead of the game are now referring to Human Resource Management as Human Capital Management. "People are a company's greatest asset", they say, hence human capital (geddit?). The term was originally due to one Theodore Schultz, The Economic Value of Education, Columbia Press, 1960.
Human Resource Management: see Human Resources.
Human Resources (HR): The management of rules and procedures within the company as they relate to people themselves. While HR policy at the broad level is formulated by senior management, HR management and administration other than at the local, working, level is the responsibility of the HR manager (= personnel manager* ). HR department administrative responsibilities encompass reward management (ie pay); recruitment; discipline and dismissal; and health & safety. * The distinction between the terms "human resources" and "personnel" is a fine one. HR may be preferred since it is said to emphasise such matters as personal commitment and empowerment etc, while personnel may suggest merely wages and pension schemes. See also Human Capital.
Hypergeometric Distribution: A statistical distribution that takes account of the interdependence of a sample and the lot remaining after samples have been taken.
