Production Planning Systems and Production Planning
Manufacturing planning and control entails the acquisition and allocation of limited resources to production activities so as to satisfy customer demand over a specified time horizon. As such, planning and control problems are inherently optimisation problems, where the objective is to develop a plan that meets demand at minimum cost or that fills the demand that maximises profit. The underlying optimisation problem will vary due to differences in the manufacturing and market context.
Manufacturing planning and control addresses decisions on the acquisition, utilisation and allocation of production resources to satisfy customer requirements in the most efficient and effective way. Typical decisions include work force level, production lot sizes, assignment of overtime and sequencing of production runs. Optimisation models are widely applicable for providing decision support in this context, common approaches include MRP / MRP II, ERP, OPT and JIT.
A Production Plan is the document which describes the employment of the manufacturing resources to produce the required products or systems, on time, and within cost constraints. Production scheduling is concerned with the allocation of resources and the sequencing of tasks to produce goods and services and is undertaken with reference to available capacity.
