The relative importance of planning and control systems in achieving good delivery performance

Amongst factors such as quick changeovers and workforce flexibility, manage rs in 533 UK manufacturing plants ranked a responsive planning and control system as the most important facilitator of good delivery performance on pr oducts made-to-order or assembled-to-order. The rankings indicate greater i mportance to companies in the Household and Engineering sectors than in Pro cess and Electronics, where other factors are dominant. These results are combined with data such as customer lead times and item v ariety, to characterize and explain differences between the plants in these four sectors. Collectively the results indicate considerable differences i n the production planning and control tasks. This implies that general stat ements on the importance of planning and control systems are inadequate. Pr actitioners need contextual information in order to ascertain when research is applicable to their circumstances.