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Recently, it has been recognized that production control systems for multi‐stage manufacturing processes can be classified into push‐type and pull‐type systems. The push‐type systems are commonly defined as those types of materials requirements planning system which utilize the forecast of demands. The pull‐type systems, on the other hand, are those where order quantities are determined on the basis of real demand. Describes a hybrid push/pull production control system, operated periodically, which combines the benefits of both systems. Discusses theoretical arguments in support of this system and numerical studies are shown to give insight into the system′s performance. Hybrid push/pull‐type systems can attain a higher degree of effectiveness if they are appropriately operated.

Production systems are becoming more and more information intensive activities. Production management is faced with new challenges which demand an overall information approach to production information systems planning. However, production systems are not all alike. Each system presents different information implications for system selection and operation. An information systems view of production information systems is offered. The analysis is based on principles central to systems thinking in general, with specific reference to production systems. Various such systems, including hierarchical, MRP, JIT, OPT and FMS, are then examined from a major aspect of systems design, the concept of system guarantors. Each of these systems has proved successful in certain production environments. However, from an information systems point of view, the question is not always one of net return or claims of increased productivity, but rather who or what will in the final analysis guarantee the system's results.

Small manufacturing companies make up the base industrial backbone of many countries including the USA. Even though CIM is generally believed to help manufacturers to compete globally, small companies are not able to adopt the technology owing to CIM′s substantial investments and its associated high risk. An alternative CIM approach is urgently needed. Proposes a shared CIM system for various types of production environments including make‐to‐stock (MTS), assembled‐to‐order (ATO), make‐to‐order (MTO), and engineered‐to‐order (ETO). Analysis based on production logic was performed in order to develop a series of guidelines for the successful application of shared CIM systems in the above production companies. It was found that the shared facility capacity allocation was the most important activity in the production‐planning process, the degree of co‐operation being highest in an ETO environment. The key success in the operation of the system will depend on the co‐operation of production planning in MTS and ATO environments, co‐operation of production control in an MTO environment, and co‐operation in engineering‐design and production control in an ETO environment.

Presents a case study of a production seat booking system for the photographic color film manufacturing industry. This manufacturing process is a hybrid flow shop, which consists of two manufacturing stages: first, processing of the film bulk‐rolls in batches, and second, packing of the final product specifications in a continuous‐process line. A production seat booking system is a new scheduling system, which reduces planning lead‐time significantly, by simplifying the time‐for‐delivery adjustment work. It was found possible to shorten planning lead‐time sharply based on this booking system. Additionally, it became possible simultaneously to reduce inventory levels and logistic‐related costs through such management innovation as shortening planning lead‐time and other entry delivery systems and such improvement activities as making small lot‐size.

Computer production management systems are far more common than they were even five years ago, as a result of reductions in the costs of computer hardware and the growing use of package software by both large and small firms. However, there are still many problems associated with such computer systems. Though the symptoms are somewhat different depending on whether we are concerned with large or small companies, the root cause is the same: a lack of any clear philosophy of what production management systems do and how they should be designed. In addition companies face a need to integrate hardware from many different suppliers and the ability to do this would also be helpful to smaller firms. At the moment such integration is difficult to carry out.

The technological level achieved by manufacturing systems in recent years has caused an exponential enlargement of problems to be faced by management, such as cost minimisation, reliability and maintainability allocation, diagnostic system design. A newly developed model for assessing the impact of failures of equipment (subject to multiple repair modes) on system production capability is presented. It is based on the numerical simulation of delay times in the production flow and enables the analyst to consider alternative and realistic policies of failure management, different starting periods and ending procedures of a finite production phase. Some examples of series manufacturing systems, with and without buffer, are analysed and sensitivity analyses are performed to assess the influence of variations of reliability and/or maintainability characteristics of the equipment on the system performances.

To address management issues in the development of flexible production systems in the enterprises of knowledge-intensive industries, this chapter considers four basic approaches to planning production processes. Based on these approaches, the methodology of the agent-based approach, which satisfies the fundamental requirements of today's production systems, is formulated, with much attention paid to the rules of dispatching as a key tool of operational control over the production plan and its implementation. The advantage of simulation-based approaches is that they can dynamically adjust the ongoing integration of planning, depending on the state of flexible production systems, in the use of combined approaches and methods of management of production processes.

Production is defined as the mission of creating wealth (economic goods and services) from a variety of resources (human and non‐ human) by adding values (intrinsic and extrinsic) through transformation (physical and conceptual) so as to derive utilities (form, place, time, economic, non‐economic). This mission is organised through a system. Basically, what a production system looks like is as Fig.1. It is basically the flow of various resources that defines the nature and characteristic of the production system.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a report of the world first robotized cellular production system developed by IDEC Corporation.

The work is based on an interview with the development team of IDEC Corporation.

The paper finds that the IDEC system is a success that paved a way to the future automated cellular production system that enables high‐mix, low‐volume production.

The paper provides an up‐to‐date insight into how to automate high‐mix low‐volume production.

The paper elaborates how a robotized cellular production system is realized.

To show necessity of risk evaluation during modelling and simulation of production systems. To show an approach to risk evaluation of manufacturing system which has serial reliability structure.

Modelling and simulation of a manufacturing system allows one to conduct verification of different solutions in the area of production planning, before they are started. This is impossible with traditional methods.

Reliable results of simulation research can be obtained only if they are based on an integrated model of the company, that covers all components of the manufacturing process including also its organization and risk in production processes.

The paper describes the stages and results of a project carried out in 2002 in an international company. The proposed method of risk evaluation may be helpful to determine the risk level in the chosen production line and eventually for the whole enterprise manufacturing systems.

The risk concept was treated as a synonym of unreliability. This kind of approach enabled decomposition of the production system into several areas and determination of the reliability structure.