UNIT TWELVE Processes and operations Why learn this unit? Describing more abstract business-specific operations and talking about manufacturing processes.

UNIT TWELVE

Processes and operations

Why learn this unit?Describing more abstract business-specific

operations and talking about manufacturing processes are skills which are often required in business settings: for example, when receiving visitors or informing clients before a sale.

Each process and industry has its own special jargon. Indeed each firm or even department may well have too. You have to know the jargon to talk to people within your ‘business’.

But remember that you also have to be able to use non-technical terms to people outside your firm, such as clients and visitors.

Study ObjectivesThis unit covers describing the

operations needed to get machines to work and to show others how to undertake certain business operations.

Explaining how things work and instructing someone how to carry out certain operations will need to be mastered.

LEAD-IN ACTIVITY

How do your parents or you make dumplings?

Can you describe the whole process---how to prepare, what ingredients are needed, how to make them and the final products?

Ingredient(filling for dumpling/stuffing)

Flour(knead dough; rolling pin;

Roll out dumpling wrapper)

Make dumpling

The water is boiling…

Ladle the dumpling from the pot and eat.

The Nature of the Production Process

• Production process involves three phases:

• (1) input• (2) transformation• (3) output

(1) input The inputs to the production process are those

resources that will be needed to produce the desired goods or service.

These can be divided into three major categories: material inputs, human inputs, and other input considerations.

The material inputs include things such as machines, raw materials, and parts.

The human inputs consist of labor and management.

Other input considerations involve plant location, electric power and other energy sources, storage facilities.

(2) transformation

• Transformation consists of those production activities that take the inputs and combine them in some special way to produce the output.

(3) output

• The output is the final result of the production process.

• In the case of a car, it is the final assembled automobile.

12.1 How does it work?

• This section deals with everyday gadgets and machines: explaining how they work and the processes they carry out.

Step B• You will find three explanations of

how a photocopier works. Then discuss these questions:

1) Which of the explanations is the easiest to follow? Why?

2) What are the best aspects of each one?

Vocabulary• sensitize: To make (a film or plate) sensitive to light, especially to l

ight of a specific wavelength. 便敏化：使（胶片或感光板）对光，尤指一定波长的光，敏感

• sensitizer n. 感光剂

• drum: Something resembling a drum in shape or structure, especially a barrellike metal container or a metal cylinder wound with cable, wire, or heavy rope. 鼓状物：形状或结构上象鼓的东西，尤指桶状金属容器或缠满电缆、电线或粗绳的金属圆柱

• electrostatic: Of or relating to electric charges at rest. 静电的

• charge: The intrinsic property of matter responsible for all electric phenomena, in particular for the force of the electromagnetic interaction, occurring in two forms arbitrarily designated negative and positive. 负荷：构成所有电子现象（尤指电磁感应力）起因的物质的固有属性，以两种任意命名的形式负 和 正 出现

• toner n. （打印机）墨粉

• photoconductive adj. [ 物 ] 光电导的 , 光敏的

• project: To cause (an image) to appear on a surface 投映：使（一个影子）出现在一个表面上

• fluorescent: Exhibiting or produced by fluorescence 发荧光的：显现荧光

• halogen: Any of a group of five chemically related nonmetallic elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine. 卤素：包括氟、氯、溴、磺、砹有化学联系的五个非金属元素一族中的任何一个

12.2 What do I have to do?

• This section gives you the opportunity to practice the skills of explaining operations, such as how to use a gadget and giving instructions.

Step A • You’ll hear explanations of how to

operate three products.• Listen to each conversation and decide

what each product is. What clues help you to work it out?

• Answers:1) photocopier2) fax machine3) the alarm on a walkman

Step C

• One of you should look at File 62, the other at File 68.

• You will have to explain to your partner how to draw a continuous line in this box, using the letters and numbers as your ‘reference points’.

• In the end your continuous line will have created a picture!

Step D

• Look at the flowchart in your books which shows the process of booking a ticket for a flight. Three steps have been left out: decide which of the boxes they fit in.

• Answers:a) Add to Provisional Listb) Up-Date Cash Recordc) Add to Firm List

12.3 A Production Process

• This section presents the language used for describing modern manufacturing processes in one of the most common text types likely to be found in business English.

• The product chosen is an everyday consumer product---chocolate.

Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gon

na get.-------- Forrest Gump

The history of the chocolateThe origins of chocolate can be traced

back to the ancient Maya and Aztec civilizations in Central America, who first enjoyed 'chocolate' .

The Aztecs of Mexico are known to have made a beverage from cocoa beans, honey, maize, and spices which they called “chocolate.”

On his fourth voyage to the Americas in 1502, Columbus took cocoa beans back to Spain.

The Spaniards improved the taste with the addition of sugar, and chocolate eventually became a popular and expensive drink among European aristocrats.

In 1728, Dr. Joseph Fry constructed the first chocolate factory, and one hundred years later the Dutchman Van Houten patented a machine for pressing cocoa powder.

This made feasible modern dark chocolate which is solid chocolate made of the ground cocoa bean, cocoa butter, and sugar.

In the case of milk chocolate, milk or dried milk is also an ingredient.

The process of the chocolate

To make chocolate, a carefully blended selection of beans are first cleaned and mixed.

After cleaning, the beans are roasted to bring out their full flavor; both the temperature and length of roasting critically determine the flavor.

The next part of the process is winnowing the beans, where the object is to separate the “nib,” or inside of the bean from the shell or husk.

Various machines are designed for this, some of which will extract a greater proportion of the nibs.

After the nibs have been broken into small fragments, they are ground into a soft mass from which all chocolate products are made.

• The chocolate mass is then mixed with fine sugar and additional cocoa butter; the latter is produced by pressing some of the cocoa mass, leaving cocoa cake as a residue which is manufactured into cocoa powder. In the case of milk chocolate, milk is also added at this time. Excess acids and moisture are extracted and the mixture is refined, which involves passing it through rollers until the proper particle size is reached. This important step determines the texture of the chocolate.

• The next step in the process is “conching” which is an art that chocolatiers have disagreed about since chocolate was first invented.

• This consists of kneading the chocolate over a shell or conch-shaped roller, and of aeration and temperature treatment, during which the product acquires a complete uniformity, and creaminess.

• At this stage, the flavor is fully developed. The length of the conching time and temperature is a secret of the chocolatier, but it is usually ten to twenty-four hours at 65°C for milk chocolate and twenty-four to ninety-six hours at 75°C for dark chocolate.

1.  What group of native Americans first used chocolate?

a. The Aztecsb. The Incas.c. The Navajo

2. “Chocolate” was an Aztec

a. Monumentb. Beverage.c. Ruler.

3. What is the different ingredient between dark and milk chocolate?

a. Sugar.b. Milkc. Cocoa butter.

.

4. What part of the cocoa bean is the nib?

a. The shell.b. The inside.c. The entire bean

5. Conching refers to the process of______

a. Collecting shells.b. Kneading chocolate.c. Winnowing cocoa.

6. Chocolate was initially a drink for what group of Europeans?

a. The upper classb.  The peasantsc.  All social classes.

7. For texture, the most important stage in chocolate making for texture is

a. Winnowing the cocoa beans.b. Rolling the chocolate mass.c. Conching the chocolate

mass.

8.  For smoothness, the most important stage in chocolate making is______.

a. Conching the chocolate massb. Winnowing the cocoa beansc. Roasting the cocoa beans

9.  What stage of chocolate manufacture is a heavily guarded secret?

a. The winnowing stage.b. The packaging stage.c. The conching stage.

10.   A good title for this selection could be ___

a.  A Diabetic’s Nightmare.b.  A Dieter’s Delight.c.  The process of Chocolate

Making.

ANSWERS

(1) Answer : a(2) Answer : b(3) Answer : b(4) Answer : b(5) Answer : b(6) Answer : a(7) Answer : b(8) Answer : c(9) Answer : c(10) Answer : c

Vocabulary• ingredients: An element in a mixture or compound; a constituent 成份

• conche: 巧克力搅拌揉捏机

• grinding: To become crushed, pulverized, or powdered by friction 磨碎

• kibbling: To crush or grind (grain, for example) coarsely. 磨成粗粒：把（如谷物）压或辗成粗粒

• evaporating: To draw moisture from, as by heating, leaving only the dry solid portion. 使脱水

• tempering: To bring to a desired consistency, texture, hardness, or other physical condition by or as if by blending, admixing, 调：通过或如通过混和、融和或揉捏来使其达到所需的坚固性、质地、硬度等

• winnowing: To examine closely in order to separate the good from the bad; sift. 筛选，选取

Step A

• The first and last questions are open-ended.

• The second has predictable answers: cocoa, sugar and milk.

Step B • You’ll hear an expert explaining how chocolate is

produced and various operations involved in its manufacture.

• After the first hearing, please number the operations listed in the box.

• After the second hearing, you should be able to distinguish clearly which of the stages belongs to the actual chocolate process and which to the preparing of the ingredients

• Answers:(1) cleaned (2) roasted (5) ground (6) pressing (9)

paste (10) ground (11) conching (12) tempering (2)roasting

Stages 1-8 refer to the preparing of the ingredientsStages 9-12 refer to the actual chocolate production

process.

Step C Reading

• Suggested answers:True: 3 4 5 6 7False: 1 2

12.4 When things go wrong…What do we do?

• This section allows you to engage in a report-writing activity in which you rehearse situations and practice the language connected with industrial operations.