Integration of process planning and production planning and control in cellular manufacturing

Organisations willing to succeed in global competition have to integrate their internal and external processes. This especially includes planning and production control (PPC) processes. Optimised allocation of the production resources and quick response to demand changes result in lower cost and improvement of production performance. Practitioners and researchers have been trying to achieve these goals using production planning techniques. Although the results are significant, it seems necessary to integrate production operations in order to improve the production performance. The goals, information and decisions taken in production planning and control and process planning are often very different and difficult to integrate in Cellular Manufacturing (CM) environments. Designing an efficient PPC system and integrating it with process planning in a cellular environment is of the same importance. The following paper proposes first a comprehensive framework of integrated process planning and production planning and control in CM. Then, with respect to this framework and utilising the domain knowledge in the area of CM systems, an integrated model based on Integrated Definition Modeling Language is developed. The application of the models has been considered as a case study for a production system in electronics and telecommunication sector in a plant in Iran. The validity and completeness of the proposed model is tested by a panel of experts in the areas of production planning and control in CM environments.     

Prerequisites of efficient decentralized waste heat recovery and energy storage in production planning

Following the scarcity of resources, rising energy prices, and an increasing awareness of the role manufacturing plays in the generation of greenhouse gas emissions, the usage of energy has more and more been considered in research on production planning and scheduling in recent years. Time-varying energy prices, which have been introduced to penalize energy usage during peak-demand periods and which are supposed to smooth energy demand, have added a new aspect to this stream of research. This article studies how the integration of a waste heat recovery system, which can convert industrial waste heat into electrical energy, along with an electrical energy storage system can balance the positive and negative effects of energy peak prices on the production plan in a serial multi-stage production system. After developing an appropriate model, we investigate how the use of the waste heat recovery system and the electrical energy storage system impact production planning. In a numerical analysis, we investigate under which conditions the recovery of waste heat combined with the opportunity to store energy provides practitioners with an efficient tool to lower total energy usage and to better react to time-varying energy prices, and thus to reduce total energy cost.     

Business planning and employee democracy in Yugoslavia

Conceptions of the role of planning in the socio-economic system have changed in the past 30 years. During the period 1946–1950 the concept of administrative planning was prevalent. From 1954 to 1976 it was planning the main economic proportions; and from 1976 to the present day the concept of self-managing social planning has been prevalent. The efficiency of planning depends in large part on the matching and co-ordination of all participants in the process, and particularly on the participation of workers in self-managing bodies taking planning decisions. Annual plans are to be treated as integral parts of mid-range plans and enterprises are obliged to analyse the implementation of their mid-range plan every year and to develop in detail activities for the next year. The principle of continuous planning is an important feature of self-managing social planning.     

Organizing the corporate planning function

A survey of corporate Planning in Britain suggests that the way the process is organized varies with the need of the firm. There appear to be two types of needs which foster the development of the planning activity—strategy development and co-ordination. In capital intensive companies, threatened by technological or market change, there is a need for reappraisal of the firm's overall strategy. On the other hand, in a large diversified firm the requirement may be to co-ordinate the plans of different divisions and departments, particularly investment proposals. This article suggests a framework for the analysis of these planning needs.     

Corporate planning for social responsibility

From his position as Senior Chaplain of a team of Industrial Chaplains, working in industry yet not part of it, the author probes the necessity for a global perspective as a setting for all decisions. The multi-national family of man with limited resources provides the context for multi-national planning and for corporate strategies. We need an ethic for society so that ethical considerations are seen to be pertinent to relationships between nations as well as relations between individuals. This paper suggests a simple model of the ethical dimensions of a global village, which will enable us to see the world perspective while operating at the corporate level and with immediate responsibilities that seem limited but are extensive.     

Behavioral aspects of corporate planning

Most models of corporate planning neglect to include behavioral variables. This is unfortunate, as human behavior is typically the most dynamic component of any planning system. Should behavioral variables be overlooked, due to their difficult measurability, or for other reasons, the planning system will inevitably prove deficient in terms of predictability and control. Accounting for human resources and other behavioral measurements should be routinely included in any corporate planning model. A component of such a system would include the output from a stochastic process model of expected future values of employee services. The theoretical development of such a model is briefly discussed in this paper.     

Urban and regional planning—A systems view

The most interesting developments in the search for new planning procedures are in the areas of ecology, as an eco system with the matrix structure of environmental impact analysis, and Ekistics, the science of human settlement. The grid system developed in this approach combined with the environmental impact analysis model, provides a complete systems approach. The problem is to relate this to systems dynamics and to integrate this approach with the concept of society as a dynamic social system. The literature review highlights key works which lead to or use the systems approach. By attempting to identify a systems approach many planning techniques and concepts are not included. However, if one adopts this approach it is possible to test the use of any technique within a recognized framework and not on the piecemeal basis which is used at present.     

An interactive city planning model

Increased man-machine communications capability can provide improvements in problem solving. This improvement can be achieved by designing flexibility of input and output through the use of interactive graphics. This paper outlines an interactive simulation system for use in city planning. In this system, simulation models of a city's demography, employment, transportation, utilities, and communications systems are interfaced with each other and with a graphics screen through the use of a module called the interface control program. This program functions as a system monitor and recognizes what, where, and when information should be transferred through the system. The interactive city planning model allows applications-oriented problem solvers to effectively use the problem solving capability of the computer to respond to events as they develop during a simulation run.     

Inter-firm co-ordination: international versus domestic buyer–seller relationships

The use of transaction cost analysis (TCA) to study the choice of governance mode in foreign countries has been a source of considerable research. Empirical tests of the TCA predictions within a single governance mode are, however, limited. Building on transaction costs arguments, and related work in international marketing literature, we examine the association between asset specificity and inter-firm co-ordination in domestic and international buyer–seller relationships. The extant literature is extended by also comparing the impact of environmental uncertainty on inter-firm co-ordination across domestic and international relationships. Empirical findings from a survey of 164 industrial buyers demonstrate that there is a positive association between asset specificity and inter-firm co-ordination, and further that this association is stronger in international relationships than in domestic business-to-business trade. Furthermore, the results indicate that environmental uncertainty is stronger related to inter-firm co-ordination in international buyer–seller relationships compared to domestic buyer–seller relationships.     

Large scale modeling for corporate planning

The purpose of this paper is to outline the characteristics, use and benefits of a resource allocation system using a model generation language, and mixed integer programming. The system has been successfully implemented and used for over three years in a multi billion dollar international paper company, to support a wide variety of corporate planning needs.     

Production planning in practice

The changes and pressures facing the manufacturing and engineering industries today are increasing the importance of effective aggregate manpower and production planning. Several different theoretical optimisation models to tackle this problem have been described in detail in the literature but there have been few applications of them in practice.The reasons for this are many but include: the difficulty in expressing managements' conflicting and mixed objectives in an objective function; the necessity to oversimplify real life systems to enable these methods to be used; the simplistic approach to manpower planning used in these models; the difficulty in gaining managements' acceptance and finally the fact that what management actually wants is a tool to assist them in planning and decision making.What is being used by many managements is a case-study deterministic simulation model. Many companies are adopting this type of model for all types of planning and twelve out of twenty-seven companies visited in a research project described in this paper were using this type of model for aggregate manpower and production planning. It is proving to be an effective management tool and is being readily accepted principally because modern specialised financial modelling languages are enabling these models to be built, understood and used by non-specialist managers.     

Energy planning in India

The author reviews India's planning for energy requirements in coal, oil, gas and nuclear power and in the fields of solar energy and the extension of forest areas to provide firewood. Coal and natural gas supplies will be increased to reduce oil demand. There will be an accelerated programme of development of bio-gas, an exploration of solar energy potential and extensive afforestation to provide additional energy sources.     

An aggregate production planning framework for the evaluation of volume flexibility

Flexibility in manufacturing has been identified as one of the key factors to success in the marketplace. Many types of flexibility have been identified in the literature among which volume flexibility is one of the most important. Volume flexibility of a manufacturing system is defined as its ability to be operated profitably at different overall output levels. Volume flexibility permits a manufacturing system to adjust production upwards or downwards within wide limits. In this paper, we develop an aggregate production planning model for volumeflexible production systems. The model can be used with a Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the optimal level of investment in volume flexibility for a firm operating under a given set of market conditions. In addition, the model can be used to develop some conclusions about the relationship between the value of volume flexibility and the cost of holding inventory, the cost of shortage, forecast accuracy, and the length of the planning horizon.     

A modified hierarchical production planning system integrated with MRP: A case study

In this paper, a hierarchical planning system is proposed which integrates aggregate capacity planning with MRP. This system is to be implemented in a metal box manufacturing company which multi-user MRP system covering manufacturing activities as well as procurement sales order processing and accounting systems. The hierarchical planning system includes a medium-range aggregate planning model adapted to the firm's requirements and strategies. The model consists of a mathematical formulation which covers labour capacity has already installed a constraints and includes certain cost estimations in the objective function. The planning horizon of the medium range planning is taken as twelve months in order to cover sales seasonality. The aggregate production quantities resulting from the optimized medium-range planning model are disaggregated according to procedures already found in the literature. Furthermore, the theoretical infeasibilities pertaining to the disaggregation procedures are also resolved in an heuristic manner. Using the latter modified disaggregation procedure, a feasible disaggregated plan is generated for the whole planning horizon. The proposed plan is compared with the current production policy of the firm and it is observed that the proposed plan leads to backorder reduction.     

The design of computer based planning and modeling systems

Today there are nearly 2000 corporations in North America and Europe either using, developing, or experimenting with some form of corporate planning model. With the emergence of this new and rather substantial interest in the methodology of corporate planning modeling, there appears to be a definite need for a conceptual framework which can be used to design and implement computer based planning and modeling systems.In this paper the authors describe a collection of elements which they believe to be of critical importance in designing a corporate planning model. Their objective is to develop a set of criteria for not only designing a planning and modeling system, but a set of criteria which can also be used to facilitate the evaluation and comparison of alternative planning and modeling systems.There are over 50 planning and modeling software packages on the market today. These include systems such as BUDPLAN, COMOS and SIMPLAN. This paper attempts to provide the reader with a convenient checklist of possible features to consider in either designing one's own system or selecting an appropriate software package.     

基于内生增长理论与GVAR模型的能源消费控制目标下经济增长与碳减排研究

本文通过引入使用可替代能源生产的中间产品,构建能源约束和碳排放约束下的内生经济增长模型,并运用全局向量自回归(GVAR)模型,实证分析了具有空间关联性的中国各省(区市)能源消费控制对经济增长和碳排放的动态影响。研究结果表明:在不影响经济增长且受碳排放约束条件下完成能源消费总量考核的目标,可以通过研发可再生能源、提高碳排放清洁技术水平、增加碳基能源的边际产出等实现;能源消费总量的考核目标对能源消费强依赖地区约束性较强,对其余地区的约束力较弱,其余地区可节能潜力较强;能源结构逆向调整的存在使得控制能源消费总量对少部分省(区市)无法达到减排效果。进一步地,本文实证分析了目前节能减排实施过程中可能存在的问题:科技进步对能源结构顺向调整效果不显著、可再生新能源的研究效率低下,技术进步对碳排放清洁方面无显著效果;依靠传统能源价格的调整虽能有效减排却会抑制经济增长。     

Organizational Learning,Innovation and Internationalization: A Complex System Model

Research on organizational learning, innovation and internationalization has traditionally linked these concepts through linear causality, by considering any one of them as the cause of another, an approach that might be considered contradictory and static. This paper aims to clarify these relationships and proposes a dynamic theoretical model that has mutual causality at its core and is based on ideas originating in complexity theory. The final model results from case studies of two clothing sector firms. The authors consider that the three concepts constitute a complex system and can adapt and transcend, as any alteration can take the system to the edge of chaos. Adaptability is fostered by concentration, improvement and discussion. Transcendence is fostered by attention, dialogue and inquiry. The different paces of the two case study companies led their systems to two different models: the incremental complex adaptive system model and the global complex generative system model. The incremental model is characterized by adaptive learning, incremental innovation and low internationalization; and the global system is characterized by generative learning, radical innovation and global internationalization. The paper ends with an exploration of the academic and management implications of the model.     

Simulation-based performance assessment of master planning approaches in semiconductor manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing is confronted with a large number of products whose mix is changing over time, heterogeneous fabrication processes, re-entrant flows of material, and different sources of environmental and system uncertainty. In this context, the mid-term production planning approach, i.e., master planning, typically does not capture the entire complexity of the shop-floor. It deals with an aggregated representation of the production system. There is a need for evaluating the planning algorithm in use while taking the execution level into account. Therefore, we introduce in this paper a simulation-based framework that allows for modeling the behavior of the market demand and the production system. An appropriate performance assessment methodology is proposed. The performance of two heuristic approaches for master planning in semiconductor manufacturing, a genetic algorithm and a rule-based assignment procedure, is evaluated within a rolling horizon setting while considering demand and execution uncertainty. A reduced discrete-event simulation model is used to mimic a one-stage network of wafer fabrication facilities. The results of simulation experiments are discussed.     

Technological change and the technology intelligence process: a case study

Various reasons are brought forward for the demise of companies in the face of fundamental technological change. Most often blamed is an insufficient technology intelligence process. However, existing research is contradictory on how this process should be organised. Therefore it is the objective of this case study to derive insight into the organisation of the technology intelligence process by analysing it in the context of radical technological change. The results of a study of the technology intelligence practices of 25 multinational companies are presented. Firstly, the structural, hybrid and informal forms of co-ordination of technology intelligence processes are presented as three parallel layers. Secondly, a framework for the distribution of tasks between the three layers of co-ordination are described and the preconditions necessary for efficient technology intelligence processes are shown. Thirdly, the results are contrasted with past research and conclusions are drawn for further research.