Manufacturing Planning and Control: A Reference Model

Production organisations are now manufacturing a wide variety of products with increasingly shorter life cycles. Managing such organisations is a complicated task. A primary reason for the complexity is the lack of clarity as to how modifications of the components of the production organization affect the performance of the organisation as a whole. What ultimately matters is the 'bottom line' efficiency and flexibility of the overall production organisation. This book focuses on how changes to the production components affect the organisation as a whole. Solutions are outlined based on concepts from Information Science and Systems Theory; knowledge of manufacturing as an application domain; and experience with the design of computerised factory control systems. More specifically, it describes the development of a reference model, which represents an idealised production organisation, defining the global tasks of its components as well as the relations between the components and the whole. A systems view of a production organisation is given, encompassing all aspects of production and management. Pointers are also included on how to complete functional specifications for components in a computerised production organisation. The reference model can also be applied to the analysis and rationalisation of non-automated or partially automated production organisations. This work addresses people studying the control organisation and procedures in factories, people responsible for the overall design of computerised manufacturing control systems, and developers of algorithms for manufacturing planning and control. The book will also be of interest to designers of large-scale systems in general.Biemans, F. P. is the author of 'Manufacturing Planning and Control: A Reference Model', published 1990 under ISBN 9780444886477 and ISBN 0444886478.