PRODUCTION PLANNING AND CONTROL

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses production planning and control. There are two influences on an economical production policy: (1) a constraint—to provide goods to a delivery date or at frequencies suitable to customer's requirements, and (2) an objective—to utilize the resources so that production costs are kept to a minimum. Because of these influences, production planning is essential. Planning decides, prepares, and issues schedules for the sequence of manufacturing. It is responsible for the preparation of parts lists, material withdrawals, and delivery to stores of finished components and subassemblies; long and short-term programming; and resource allocation. There are two types of information essential to a company's activities: (1) permanent customer/order knowledge preferably recorded in a form suitable for statistical analysis and forecasting and (2) transient demand/supply information in the form of current orders, stock withdrawals, production and dispatch, and sequencing and loading schedules. These areas of knowledge and information are the link between company headquarters, sales offices, customers, and work's production resources. Both provide management and customer with pertinent and timely facts about the progress of orders, utilization of production and servicing resources and the material and stocks positions.