Manpower planning and individual goals

Manpower planning is often considered as a subsystem within industrial organizations, containing a hierarchy of levels. In this article it is suggested that manpower planning has to reconcile the organization's profitability and employees' individual needs and goals. An attempt is made to analyse some recent manpower planning studies with special regard to the consideration of individual goals and their treatment. In conclusion, the authors propose an approach to considering individual needs and goals in manpower planning systems.     

The current practice of bank long-range planning

This paper reports on a recent survey of long-range planning practices in 105 large United States banks. The survey results indicate that long range planning is a relatively new corporate activity with more than half the respondents initiating long range planning the last 5 years. To the extent these banks lead others, this finding suggests greater adoption of long range planning systems in small and medium size banks in the future. Profitability and growth goals are the primary goals quantified in the planning process. These goals are pursued via various strategies. Profit goals are typically pursued by improving pricing policies, adjusting mix and maturity of assets and liabilities to minimize adverse effects of interest rate fluctuations, managing spreads through proper loan pricing and bond portfolio management and tightening cost control with a particular emphasis on non-interest expense. Growth goals are achieved by branch expansion, use of bank holding companies, and increased market penetration through product diversification and sales training programmes designed to develop new business. In addition, information is presented on trends that appear to be developing in the area of long-range planning in the banking industry.     

A survey of goal programming

In this paper the applications of goal programming to industrial and economic planning are reviewed, and it is shown how the linear programming framework can be extended to include a series of goals (or objectives). A planning method is suggested in which the decision maker is presented with a list of all the possible attainable goals from which he picks the most appropriate set.     

The dangers of centralized economic planning

There is little evidence that there is much value in riveting attention on the question of strategic planning in an era of low growth or negative growth. Rather, there is value in discussing strategic planning in terms of the efficient realization of society's goals— whether expressed as economic goals or as non-economic aspirations. This article contains some observations on corporate strategic planning, provides perspective on the energy and materials scarcity question, and warns that detailed economic planning by government thwarts the optimal use of resources to improve living conditions for everyone. The author holds that renewed government reliance upon the workings of a competitive market economy is indispensable for achieving this goal.     

Planning for retail change: a survey of municipal governments in Washington State

Effectively managing retail is essential for municipalities in terms of meeting land use planning goals, developing revenue sources through taxation, furthering economic growth and providing access to goods and services for residents. In 2013, a survey was conducted to examine the retail planning practices of all the 110 small- and medium-sized municipalities in Washington State. The online survey addressed data collection and analysis, land use, retail recruitment, inter-jurisdictional cooperation and evaluation. A large majority of respondents had retail planning goals in their comprehensive plans, yet only 30% dedicated staff for implementation. Jurisdictions would benefit from regional retail planning (especially in light of changes underway from e-commerce), yet the state tax structure places municipalities in competition.     

Long range planning of U.K. and Japanese corporations—A comparative study

The author conducted mail surveys on long-range planning systems in Japanese and British corporations. He also made a number of visits to corporations in both countries to analyse the similarities and differences in the planning systems.In the U.K., the clarification of goals and the resource allocation are emphasized but in Japan clarification of goals and basic problem finding are stressed.The strategic projects are not necessarily formulated in the long-range planning process. The relationship between the project and the long-range planning was analysed and in both countries, the trend of long-range planning is towards more strategy orientation than quantitative computation.The planning process in Japan is more centralized. The management committee plays an important role in reviewing and making the final decision. In the U.K., the plan initiation is more decentralized, and in the final decision the board of directors plays a more important role. The trends are, however, from bottom up approach to top down approach.Goals expressed in the long-range plan of the U.K. corporations put more emphasis on financial goals, but that of the Japanese corporations emphasizes growth and employee welfare.Regarding the style of strategic decision-making the subjective responses show that it is partly analytical and partly intuitive. There are some differences between two countries, but this problem needs to be analysed further.To cope with uncertainty, multiple scenarios and contingency plans are more frequently used in the U.K., whereas in Japan the sequential decision is more commonly used. British corporations are better prepared for uncertainty than Japanese corporations.The key success factors of long-range planning are similar in both countries. The involvement of top management and cooperation of line management are two important items. Differences are that in the U.K. the planning system is emphasized in addition to the other factors, but in Japan clear goals are more emphasized.     

Defining goals—A systems approach

Most planning strategies include a goal development phase, yet very little concrete information is available in the program planning literature to help the planner know what a goal is or should be. Goals play an important role in systems theory and the theory offers a structure for the careful defining of goals. This article identifies the function of goals in systems as being the facilitation of evaluation and control. From this system functional analysis viewpoint, several specific characteristics of goals are derived and discussed.     

Strategic planning in a changing corporate environment

Strategic planning is about nothing, if it is not about attempting to achieve desirable futures. In the past this has often been seen as an excuse, or indeed a necessity, for fixed goals which are constantly timed. Such a state of planning has, fortunately, for a long time now been discredited and this paper concentrates upon the concepts of strategic planning within the changing corporate environment, an environment which therefore has to effect both the goals as well as the process of planning. Furthermore, the author concentrates upon the concept of a planning, allocating, and monitoring cycle of strategic planning which sets the strategic planning concept within a process cycle as well as within an effective allocative structure. The author considers this latter point an extremely important one since, as he says, ‘planning can become a very sterile and barren activity if it is not viewed integrally with acting and doing’. Finally, this paper concentrates on the important fact that planning must, within a dynamic environment, be an iterative and a learning process.     

Elements of effective corporate planning

This paper focuses on several specific areas in corporate planning which heretofore have received limited attention in the literature. These areas include perception of a need for planning, analysis of planning from a process viewpoint with particular emphasis on organizational structure, and elements of effective planning. Data on which conclusions are based were developed through structured in-depth interviews with key planning executives of 14 large corporations in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan area.The study determined that the most prevalent event associated with perception of a need for more formalized planning was a change in top management. The emphasis on planning usually arose from three sets of factors—organizational, external, and performance. The typical planning process involves establishing corporate goals and objectives, setting environmental premises, collecting information and forecasting, establishing divisional goals and objectives, developing divisional plans, and revising objectives and plans if objectives are not met. The major participants in the planning process are top management, the corporate planning department, divisional general management, divisional staff groups, and intermediary planning groups.The study identified necessary conditions for effective planning which included planning knowledge and skills, planning climate, psychological commitment, and effective group behavior. The study also includes a discussion of planning weaknesses, current trends, and recommendations.     

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.     

Long range planning— An open systems view

Long range planning has been identified as a major managerial factor for many years. Unfortunately, some important factors have not been adequately incorporated into the planning process. These componets of open systems theory—the environment, goals, and strategy— are discussed and integrated into the long-range planning process. This procedure will make for a more successful and effective planning operation in organizations     

Planning Interventions: Urban Bias,Social Reform and the City

The planning profession struggled for urban amelioration, but avoided confronting the conflict between the redistributive public interest and the goals of industrial capital, resulting in a devaluing of social planning in the US. This article classifies social biases in planning and relates them to sanctuary cities. In the current crisis, launched by the federal government’s hostile rhetoric to immigrants, the planning apparatus is forced to confront what it has sought to avoid – planning for the just, inclusive city that has to reckon with the presence of some of the poorest urban populations.     

Flexible reasoning using sensible agent-based systems: A case study in job flow scheduling

Planning and control systems for highly dynamic and uncertain manufacturing environments require adaptive flexibility and decision-making capabilities. Modern distributed manufacturing systems assess the utility of planning and executing solutions for both system goals (e.g. minimize manufacturing production time for all parts or minimize WIP) and local goals (e.g. expedite part A production schedule or maximize machine X utilization). Sensible Agents have the ability to alter their autonomy levels to choose among a set of decision models in order to handle the differences between local and system goals. In this paper, Sensible Agents are applied to a production planning and control problem in the context of job shop scheduling and decision model theory. Sensible Agents provide for trade-off reasoning mechanisms among system and local utilities that are flexible and responsive to an agent's abilities, situational context and position in the organizational structure of the system.     

SMART oder MOTTO? Von der Hemmung in die Handlungsfähigkeit durch passende Zielformulierung

In consultancies, goals are often set very concrete on a behavioral level which can increase one’s probability of success to attain the goal. However, if people are anxious and worried when they talk about their goals, there seems to be too little identification with the goals and attainment is impossible. The reason is often a conflict between conscious and unconscious needs. The Zürcher Ressourcen Modell (ZRM) has developed MOTTO-goals which are defined on an attitudinal level and bring into accordance consciousness and unconsciousness. They build identification with goals and thus, support goal pursuit. If people already identify with their goals, they can immediately start with concrete planning.     

Planning for a university,using interactive forecasting

The benefits of programme review, forward planning and control have been demonstrated at the university-wide level. Within a faculty or department, there is also a clear need for developing and using planning methods which are rationally based and forward looking if appropriate responses to changing social and academic trends are to be made. This paper delineates a number of planning and control variables encountered at the faculty or departmental level, describes the development and use of a computer-based interactive forecasting model, and discusses the advantages and limitations of such models in planning a faculty's progress toward its goals.     

Assessing the effectiveness of strategic planning

This paper describes a method for assessing the effectiveness of strategic planning systems in terms of the results actually observed subsequent to planning activity. The paper explains in particular how, in making the assessment, one might cope with the fact of environmental change subsequent to the setting of planned goals. This ends oriented approach to measuring effectiveness is shown to be complementary to process oriented approaches and is illustrated by an example from the coal industry.     

Setting corporate objectives using market required earnings

This paper examines and illustrates a new approach to corporate planning. The authors provide a framework which can overcome some of the more pernicious effects of long term corporate planning such as the gearing of the more fundamental commercial goals. The authors produce a rigorous framework as to the criteria upon which a corporate strategy should be based and then tested their model against the corporate planning activities of several large companies whose profitability rates were relatively high. Finally, the paper analyses the optimal method of utilizing the proposed model.     

Planning and control systems in materials management-an empirical study

The article presents a conceptual framework for the planning and control system in materials management. By an empirical analysis, three phases of development of the planning and control system in materials management are derived. These are related significantly with the kind of materials management. The main influencing factors are quality of management, quality of controlling, importance of materials management, and importance of the goals of materials management.     

Application of fuzzy goal programming technique to land use planning in agricultural system

This paper presents how fuzzy goal programming can be efficiently used for modelling and solving land-use planning problems in agricultural systems for optimal production of several seasonal crops in a planning year. In the model formulation of the problem, utilization of total cultivable land, supply of productive resources, aspiration levels of various production of crops as well as the total expected profit from the farm are fuzzily described. In the decision-making situation, minimization of the under-deviational variables of the membership goals with highest membership value (unity) as their achievement levels defined for the membership functions of the fuzzy goals of the problem on the basis of the priorities of importance of achieving the aspired levels of the fuzzy goals to the extent possible is considered. As a study region, the District Nadia, West Bengal, India is taken into account. To expound the potential use of the approach, the model solution is compared with the existing cropping plan of the District as well as a solution of the problem obtained by using the additive fuzzy goal programming model studied by Tiwari et al. (Fuzzy sets and systems 24(1987)27.) previously.     

The hazards of strategic planning for global markets

Global strategic marketing planning has emerged as a key process in managing today's worldwide marketplace. This survey of 90 large American global corporations reveals that most are bottom-up planners. US firms appear to have distinct cost and numbers orientations. Industry and competitive analyses are used in many companies, although managers appear to lack suitable frameworks for SWOT analyses. Economic climate changes tend to be most disruptive to global planning efforts. When faced with non-achievement of goals, most firms reformulate both objectives and strategies.