Question

Is demand for a book cover, which includes the title and author's name, dependent on demand for the book? Are tennis ball sales dependent on demand for tennis rackets? Are lawn mower guards dependent on demand for lawn mowers? Are table legs dependent on demand for tables? What is it that production planners are referring to when they use the term bucket?

Answer 1

The demand for a book cover which includes the title and author’s name is dependent on the demand for the book. Book cover is a component part to form the finished good of book which creates vertical dependence and hence the demand for book cover is dependent on the demand for book.

Tennis ball sales is dependent on demand for tennis rackets. Tennis ball is not required to complete the production process but it is required for the marketing of tennis rackets as both are required to play tennis. Hence a horizontal dependent demand is created here.

Lawn mower guard is a part of lawn mower which makes it dependent on the finished good of lawn mowers. Hence both are dependent.

Table legs are also dependent on demand for tables because table legs are component part of the finished good, table and hence dependent.

In a production system, bucket means the time increments used to develop the schedules. Each bucket projects one period of activity and the size of the bucket shows the size of the period. The most commonly used are weakly time increments, but monthly and daily periods are also used.