Development of planning and scheduling reference models using the aris method & toolset

Abstract

Most manufacturing fInns are under considerable pressure to increase their flexibility and responsiveness within the market. Key business processes concerned with responsiveness include infonnation systems for demand management and manufacturing control. Overall, infonnation systems account for almost a quarter of all IT investment within major manufacturing companies and much of this is currently being spent with ERP vendors who include BAAN, Oracle, SAP and MK Manufacturing (Vortman, 1998). It is estimated that Seventy-fIve percent of these fInns still use infonnation systems based on the MRPIMRPII paradigm regardless of its suitability to their specifIc requirements and its inherent inability to be responsive to short tenn changes in customer needs. Whilst simpler systems (TIT for example) appear to work well for high volumes of standard products, the market trend in many industries is towards a reduction of product volume and increase variety to the extent that computer support for manufacture becomes essential. Recent research (Little et aI, 1995) has shown that one key area for all manufacturing companies is the performance of the manufacturing control function. There is a wide range of generic proprietary software available that meets a company's planning and scheduling requirements with varying degrees of success. The diffIculty experienced by many companies is not only in examining available software, but also in understanding the match between their business needs and the capabilities of that software. A poor match typically limits the ability of a fInn to respond to market changes and is likely to inhibit company K. Mertins et al. (eds.), Global Production Management

Modelling the changing apparel supply chain

“…Research carried out within firms in the UK apparel manufacturing sector (Little et al , 1996) highlighted major changes required in their OFPs. Along with other apparel producers in Europe and those of most developed industrial nations, the companies studied face one major competitive disadvantage, that of relative high labour costs.…”

“…This results in their new system being configured to the nearest general architecture available (sometimes referred to as the “vanilla flavour”). Research has shown that this is not necessarily the optimum solution for an effective company that has successfully developed its structure and operational methods in response to its environment over many years (Little et al , 1999 Case‐study no. 4).…”

“…Research has shown that although very successful in many applications, MRPII on its own is not always an optimum planning and scheduling solution for all sectors (Little et al , 1995). To further refine the process of matching manufacturing systems control architectures to a greater range of individual company requirements it has been identified that a selection of more specific reference architectures is required (Little et al , 1996). These will assist in the specification of the order fulfillment process for a particular sector.…”