DYNAMIC PLANNING ENRICHES CONCURRENT PROCESS AND PRODUCTION PLANNING

Many problems within manufacturing appear as a consequence of both organizational and technological issues. The hierarchical, MRP based 'command and execute' relations between functions are developed to suit the organizational structures of the past and it must be replaced by distributed self-driving organizational nodes which can respond to the dynamic requirements of the future manufacture. Computers are not required to build a huge centralized system; they are required to support the tasks of the individual users in order to improve the quality of the work performed and to increase the speed at which it is performed. Integration of the process and the production planning functions to incorporate dynamic and concurrent aspects during decision making is a key element in achieving flexibility. This will result in changed operations of the functions, because the tasks and timeframes are changed. Concurrent operation of the process planning and production planning will provide co-ordination of the two activities towards the common system goal. Dynamic planning is a production control philosophy covering the activities of process and production planning in a dynamic changing environment.