A review of production planning and scheduling in smaller manufacturing companies in the UK

Abstract

This paper briefly reviews recent published work in the area of production planning and control, in the context of attempting to determine the extent to which it is likely to contribute to the needs of the user community, especially smaller manufacturing enterprises. A sample questionnaire survey is then described in detail. Its aims were to establish current practice and to identify factors which influence production planning and control and, especially scheduling, in real manufacturing organizations. This is supported by four mini-case descriptions. The paper concludes with a short discussion of an approach to bridging the gap between theory and practice, and to the development of software to support schedulers in smaller organizations.