What are the steps involved from developing an SPFx application and deploying it to Production?

First of all you need to set up your developmet environment using below steps.

1. Install Node
2. Install yoman
3. Install gulp,
4. install code editor like VS Code

then create your webpart using yoman generator “yo @microsoft/sharepoint”

After complete your develoment just tun gulp commands, gulp bundle --ship and gulp package-solution --ship which will create your sppkg file

upload that file to SharePoint appcatalog, click on deploy

for more details you can find a very good article written by SharePoint Gems.