Human and organization problems in corporate planning

Any management method which is to work in practice must start by recognizing man as he really is, and not what he ought to be. The typical textbook company of the 1960's was peopled by obedient, logical, profit-oriented, ox-like employees—sterilized and faceless characters with£'s signs in their thought bubbles, but the study of Behavioural Science in recent years has taught us that man is a rather more complex animal than we used to think. Simple observations tell us that in practice no business is as tidy, flawless and rational as a 1960's textbook. The reason is that we are people—difficult as individuals for a start and infinitely more complex still when we combine in groups. “Businessman” must be accepted in his full glory, with his ungovernable motives, his intelligence, creativity, his desire for a quiet life, his intuition, his private needs, fears and ambitions and his paradoxical self-seeking ability to cooperate. Everybody who has worked in a company knows the gloriously complicated muddles which “businessman” can get himself into; the misused routines; the convoluted organization structures; the dreadful panics during which all the rules are broken, and the peculiar thing is that, in spite of all these untidinesses, things seem to get done just the same. My point is that management and planning is an extremely complicated business, it is complicated because it is a matter of handling people, it is an art not a science.     

Corporate planning in local government: Some measurement problems

A corporate planning system makes measurement demands on an organisation which it may not have met before. This paper describes these in the context of corporate planning in local government, and discusses some typical examples, especially as far as needs for services and the effects of providing them are concerned. It also deals with the extent to which choices can be measured, and with the constraints that a real-time decision system puts on the planner.     

Tackling strategy management

Managing strategies in a one-man business is second nature to the entrepreneur. Strategic coordination becomes much more problematic as the company grows. In today's large multi-nationals, their size constantly threatens strategic lethargy and inertia. Only those companies which can manage their business strategies effectively in all levels of the enterprise are likely to survive and prosper against the competition. This paper seeks to describe how one manufacturing enterprise, as part of a very large marketing oriented multi-national, sets out to tackle this challenge.     

Computational complexity of algorithms for MRP and JIT production planning problems in enterprise resource planning systems

An enterprise resource planning system (ERP) is the information backbone of many manufacturing companies. At the core of ERP is a conventional material requirements planning (MRP) production planning system or a variation of MRP when just-in-time (JIT) principles are used in manufacturing. MRP and JIT both organize production planning into a hierarchy of long-, medium- and short-range problems. In all there are eight different problems. Some are common to MRP and JIT, others are specialized for a particular system. This paper analyses the computational requirements of these problems. This is important for ERP because it plans for large numbers of products (e.g. 50 000 products at 3M Company and 44 000 products at States Industries in Oregon) at large numbers of locations (e.g. 82 locations in 21 countries for Visteon Automotive Systems of Michigan and 19 locations at Boeing). We show that adequate algorithms exist for some problems, but better algorithms are needed for other problems if ERP is to provide useful production plans.     

发展区域经济要注重强攻重大项目

重大项目是"张力源",是发展区域经济的第一突破口;外向经济是"催化剂",是发展区域经济的强大助推器.联系实际,笔者认为,处于工业化初期向中期转型的地区,要在区域竞争中加速发展、争先进位,提升经济外向度、强攻重大项目仍是重中之重.     

The human side of merger planning

This article argues that chief executive officers and staff planners must more explicitly integrate ‘change planning’ with the other dimensions of merger planning (e.g. financial, marketing) if implementation is to be successful. Based on recent research, guidelines for gaining acceptance of merger are presented and discussed. The need to distinguish between gaining initial acceptance, on the one hand, and continuing acceptance on the other is stressed, and the guidelines carry forward that distinction. Such guidelines should be integrated into the overall strategic plan developed for merger.     

Improving human resources for health planning in developing economies

There is a universal consensus that human resources represent the heart and soul of effective health systems everywhere. However, despite this consensus, human resource planning in low income countries remains a neglected, often poorly implemented and ineffective component of health-system development. The planning exercises that do take place are often inefficient, use inappropriate planning models or fail to adequately prioritize human resource investment decisions. This article briefly discusses possible reasons why this failure occurs and describes four key steps that can help health system planners more effectively prioritize and link human resource for health investment decisions to health system strategy and programmatic initiatives. Implications for human resource development practice and national human resource development are discussed.     

Genetic algorithm to production planning and scheduling problems for manufacturing systems

Fundamental and extended multi-objective (MO) models are designed to address earliness/tardiness production scheduling planning (ETPSP) problems with multi-process capacity balance, multi-product production and lot-size consideration. A canonical genetic algorithm (GA) approach and a prospective multi-objective GA (MOGA) approach are proposed as solutions for different practical problems. Simulation results as well as comparisons with other techniques demonstrate the effectiveness of the MOGA approach, which is a noted improvement to any of the existing techniques, and also in practice provides a new trend of integrating manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) with just-in-time (JIT) in the production planning procedure.     

Corporate planning in the Netherlands

This article is the result of an investigation into the practice of corporate planning in 20 major Dutch companies. The results emphazise some of the problems regarding the corporate planner and his role in the firm. Those problems are such that it is not unrealistic to speak of some sort of “identity crisis”.     

Tackling seasonality : The case of Sri Lanka

Seasonality can be analysed at three levels — national, regional, and sectoral. In Sri Lanka there is a direct relationship between the product/ market mix of individual regions and their seasonality. The south-west coast resorts, with their November–March high season, are a major factor in the national seasonal pattern. Several diversification measures are considered and their probable impact assessed. A distinction is made between seasonal markets(eg Sweden) and counter-seasonal markets (eg India), and between inherent and expedient seasonality. The author discusses the deliberate manipulation of the supply of accomodation and its main effects.     

Tailor-made planning: Making planning fit the firm

This selective and limited application of the contingency approach to planning is intended to show that the process is a highly flexible set of activities which can be adapted and tailored to the organization's requirements. At each stage of the planning process the manager has a set of choices which enable him to make the best possible fit between the process and the organization. He is not a passive recipient of a pre-ordained sequence of rigidly invariable activities. He is in the position of being able to select specific solutions to specific problems so that the planning process and structure form the best possible fit for the organization in its environment.     

Smart cities: implications of urban planning for human resource development

This paper looks at creative or smart city experiments around the world that are aimed at nurturing a creative economy through investment in quality of life which in turn attracts knowledge workers to live and work in smart cities. It highlights the need for and broad nature of human resource/talent development initiatives at the intermediate level, that is regional and city level, as opposed to organizational and national level. Using the literature on economic geography, it provides a useful theoretical framework to cross organizational boundaries and look for factors that influence the decision of knowledge workers in choosing a location to live and work. The implications of urban planning on the theory and practice of human resource development are explored.     

An oracle-based algorithm for robust planning of production routing problems in closed-loop supply chains of beverage glass bottles

The demand for glass bottles is exhibiting an upward trend over time. The manufacturing of glass bottles is costlier in terms of time and resources and is associated with a higher level of heat generation and environmental pollution compared to recycling processes. In response to the aforementioned challenges, companies that use glass bottles need to implement strategies to manage their reverse supply chains in conjunction with their traditional supply chains, as the economic and environmental benefits of returned products are unquestionable. Closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) integrate forward and reverse flows of products and information. This integration helps companies to have a broader view of the whole chain. Despite these advantages, managing CLSCs can be challenging as they are exposed to many uncertainties regarding supply and demand processes, travel times, and quantity/quality of returned products.In this study, we consider the production planning, inventory management, and vehicle routing decisions of a CLSC of beverage glass bottles. We propose an MILP model and rely on a multi-stage adjustable robust optimization (ARO) formulation to deal with the randomness in both the demand for filled bottles and the requests for pickups of empty bottles. We develop an exact oracle-based algorithm to solve the ARO problem and propose a heuristic search algorithm to reduce the solution time. Our numerical experiments not only show the incompetency of the customary method, namely the affine decision rule approach, but also illustrate how our algorithms can solve the small-size problems and significantly improve the quality of the obtained solution for large problems. Furthermore, our numerical results show that robust plans tend to be sparse, meaning the routes are chosen so that empty bottles are transported to production sites in such a way that fewer new bottles need to be ordered. Thus, robust planning makes the CLSCs more environmentally friendly.     

Corporate planning in the mineral industry

The following overview of external and industry environment with brief references on approaches to corporate planning, is intended to stimulate interest for more in-depth examination of particular phases or issues in planning within the mineral industry. Commentary and dialogue will be welcomed by the author.     

National planning in the United States

This paper is concerned with the relatively new interest in national planning in the United States. The effects of the Arab oil embargo and price increases, impending scarcities of minerals, inflation, unemployment, and other problems seem to be reversing the American public's negative views of planning by the Federal government. Assuming that negative sentiments are still strong and aware of the difficulty of institutional change, the authors submit a modest proposal for initiating a formal system of indicative national planning.The proposal is based upon an analysis of the economic challenges facing the United States and the apparent inability of the Federal government to respond effectively to change. The solution is seen as the need for an economic intelligence activity coupled to the formulation of ‘inventories of policy alternatives’, with a minimum of structural change or expansion in governmental structure.The recent Humphrey-Javits proposal for national planning is discussed briefly and critically.     

Paradoxes in planning

A paradox may be described as: ‘an idea which seems to conflict with conventional logic’. Strategic planning has acquired such a conventional logic, or set of paradigms, which enables its practitioners to structure and understand their activities. However, some years of being a practitioner has convinced the author that good management and good planning often violate these principles. It is necessary to restate them, or frequently to invert them, to obtain a useful structure for successful planning.