Automated Manufacturing Systems and Production Planning and Control

Abstract

The complexity of the problem of production planning and control for batch manufacture in both conventional and automated systems has been stressed: again, any automated manufacturing system will underachieve unless there is high quality production planning and control. The results of poor production planning and control can be severe, with high work-in-progress levels, high lead times and poor system usage. The latter aspect is important when one bears in mind the high cost of these automated manufacturing systems; the only way in which they can be justified is if they demonstrate the good rate of return associated with high usage.