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Chemical Engineering Department

Production and project management

1. Production planning and control

1.1. Introduction

Production planning and control helps to achieve uninterrupted flow of materials through production line by making available the
materials at right time and required quantity1.

Production planning and control can be defined as the process of planning the production in advance, setting the exact route of each
item, fixing the starting and finishing dates for each item, to give production orders to shops and to follow up the progress of products
according to orders2.

The principle of production planning and control lies in the statement „First Plan Your Work and then Work on Your Plan‟. Main functions
of production planning and control includes planning, routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow-up. Planning is deciding in advance
what to do, how to do it, when to do it and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap from where we are, to where we want to go. It
makes it possible for things to occur which would not otherwise happen. Routing may be defined as the selection of path which each
part of the product will follow, which being transformed from raw material to finished products. Routing determines the most
advantageous path to be followed from department to department and machine to machine till raw material gets its final shape.
Scheduling determines the program for the operations. Scheduling may be defined as „the fixation of time and date for each operation‟
as well as it determines the sequence of operations to be followed.

Dispatching is concerned with the starting the processes. It gives necessary authority so as to start a particular work, which has
already been planned under „Routing‟ and „Scheduling‟. Therefore, dispatching is „release of orders and instruction for the starting of
production for any item in acceptance with the route sheet and schedule charts‟. The function of follow-up is to report daily the
progress of work in each shop in a prescribed proforma and to investigate the causes of deviations from the planned performance.

Production planning and control is a tool available to the management to achieve the stated objectives. Thus, a production system is
encompassed by the four factors. i.e., quantity, quality, cost and time. Production planning starts with the analysis of the given data,
i.e., demand for products, delivery schedule etc., and on the basis of the information available, a scheme of utilisation of firms
resources like machines, materials and men are worked out to obtain the target in the most economical way. Once the plan is
prepared, then execution of plan is performed in line with the details given in the plan. Production control comes into action if there is
any deviation between the actual and planned. The corrective action is taken so as to achieve the targets set as per plan by using
control techniques.

Set by: Tekleweyni G. MSc. in Material Science and Engineering

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Thus production planning and control can be defined as the “direction and coordination of firms‟ resources towards attaining the
prefixed goals.” Production planning and control helps to achieve uninterrupted flow of materials through production line by making
available the materials at right time and required quantity.

1.2. Need for production planning and control

This system manages efficiently the flow of material, effective utilization of human resource etc. it serves as a useful tool to
coordinate the activities of the production system by proper planning and control system. Production system can be compared to the
nervous system with PPC as a brain. Production planning and control is needed to achieve:

1. Effective utilisation of firms‟ resources.

2. To achieve the production objectives with respect to quality, quantity, cost and timeliness of delivery.
3. To obtain the uninterrupted production flow in order to meet customers varied demand with respect to quality and committed
delivery schedule.
4. To help the company to supply good quality products to the customer on the continuous basis at competitive rates.

Production planning is a pre-production activity. It is the pre-determination of manufacturing requirements such as manpower,
materials, machines and manufacturing process. Ray wild defines “Production planning is the determination, acquisition and
arrangement of all facilities necessary for future production of products.” It represents the design of production system. Apart from
planning the resources, it is going to organize the production. Based on the estimated demand for company‟s products, it is going to
establish the production programme to meet the targets set using the various resources.

1.3. Production Control

In spite of planning to the minute details, most of the time it is not possible to achieve production 100 per cent as per the plan. There
may be innumerable factors which affect the production system and because of which there is a deviation from the actual plan. Some
of the factors that affect are:

1. Non-availability of materials (due to shortage, etc.);

2. Plant, equipment and machine breakdown;
3. Changes in demand and rush orders;
4. Absenteeism of workers; and
5. Lack of coordination and communication between various functional areas of business.

Thus, if there is a deviation between actual production and planned production, the control function comes into action. Production
control through control mechanism tries to take corrective action to match the planned and actual production. Thus, production
control reviews the progress of the work, and takes corrective steps in order to ensure that programmed production takes place.

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The essential steps in control activity are:

1. Initiating the production,

2. Progressing, and
3. Corrective action based upon the feedback and reporting back to the production planning

1.4. Types of control

• Feed Forward Control - Control that attempts to identify and prevent deviations before they occur is called feed forward
control, sometimes called preliminary or preventive control.
• Concurrent Control - Control that monitors ongoing employee activities during their progress, to ensure they are
consistent with quality standards, is called concurrent control.
• Feedback Control - In this case, the control takes place after the action, sometimes called post-action or output control.

1.5. Objectives of production planning and control

Following are the objectives of production planning and control:

1. Systematic planning of production activities to achieve the highest efficiency in production of goods/services.
2. To organize the production facilities like machines, men, etc., to achieve stated production objectives with respect to quantity and
quality time and cost.
3. Optimum scheduling of resources.
4. Coordinate with other departments relating to production to achieve regular balanced and uninterrupted production flow.
5. To conform to delivery commitments.
6. Materials planning and control.
7. To be able to make adjustments due to changes in demand and rush orders.

1.6. Phases of production planning and control

Production planning and control has three phases namely:

A. Planning Phase
B. Action Phase
C. Control Phase

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Planning Phase

Planning is an exercise of intelligent anticipation in order to establish how an objective can be achieved or a need fulfilled in
circumstances, which are invariably restrictive. Production planning determines the optimal schedule and sequence of
operations economic batch quantity, machine assignment and dispatching priorities for sequencing. It has two categories
of planning namely

1. Prior planning

2. Active planning

PRIOR PLANNING

Prior planning means pre-production planning. This includes all the planning efforts, which are taking place prior to the
active planning. Modules of pre-planning

The modules of prior planning are as follows:

1. Product development and design is the process of developing a new product with all the features, which are essential for
effective use in the field, and designing it accordingly. At the design stage, one has to take several aspects of design like,
design for selling, design for manufacturing and design for usage.

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2. Forecasting is an estimate of demand, which will happen in future. Since, it is only an estimate based on the past demand,
proper care must be taken while estimating it. Given the sales forecast, the factory capacity, the aggregate inventory levels
and size of the work force, the manager must decide at what rate of production to operate the plant over an intermediate
planning horizon.

3. Aggregate planning aims to find out a product wise planning over the intermediate planning horizon.

4. Material requirement planning is a technique for determining the quantity and timing for the acquisition of dependent
items needed to satisfy the master production schedule.

ACTIVE PLANNING

The modules of active planning are: Process planning and routing, Materials planning, Tools planning, Loading, Scheduling
etc.

1. Process planning and routing is a complete determination of the specific technological process steps and their sequence
to produce products at the desired quality, quantity and cost. It determines the method of manufacturing a product selects
the tools and equipments, analyses how the manufacturing of the product will fit into the facilities. Routing in particular
prescribes the flow of work in the plant and it is related to the considerations of layout, temporary locations for raw
materials and components and materials handling systems.

2. A material planning is a process which determines the requirements of various raw materials/subassemblies by
considering the trade-off between various cost components like, carrying cost, ordering cost, shortage cost, and so forth.

3. Tools‟ planning determines the requirements of various tools by taking process specification (surface finish, length of
the job, overall depth of cut etc.), material specifications (type of material used, hardness of the material, shape and size of
the material etc.) and equipment specifications (speed range, feed range, depth of cut range etc.).

4. Loading is the process of assigning jobs to several machines such that there is a load balance among the machines. This
is relatively a complex task, which can be managed with the help of efficient heuristic procedures.

5. Scheduling is the time phase of loading and determines when and in what sequence the work will be carried out. This
fixes the starting as well as the finishing time for each job.

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Action Phase

Action phase has the major step of dispatching. Dispatching is the transition from planning phase to action phase. In this
phase, the worker is ordered to start manufacturing the product. The tasks which are included in dispatching are job order,
store issue order, tool order, time ticket, inspection order, move order etc. The job order number is the key item which is
to be mentioned in all other reports/orders. Stores issue order gives instruction to stores to issue materials for
manufacturing the product as per product specifications. As per tooling requirements for manufacturing the product, the
tool order instruct the tool room to issue necessary tools. Time ticket is nothing but a card which is designed to note down
the actual time taken at various processes. This information is used for deciding the costs for future jobs of similar nature
and also for performing variance analysis, which helps to exercise control.

Job order is the official authorization to the shop floor to start manufacturing the product. Generally, the process
sequence will contain some testing and inspection. So, these are to be instructed to inspection wing in the form of
inspection order for timely testing and inspection so that the amount of rework is minimized. The manufacture of product
involves moving raw materials/subassemblies to the main line. This is done by a well-designed materials handling system.
So, proper instruction is given to the materials handling facilities for major movements of materials/subassemblies in the
form of a move order. Movements which involve less distance and fewer loads are managed at the shop floor level based on
requests from operators.

Control Phase

The control phase has the following two major modules: 1. Progress reporting, and 2. Corrective action.

1. PROGRESS REPORTING

In progress reporting, the data regarding what is happening with the job is collected. Also, it helps to make comparison with
the present level of performance. The various data pertaining to materials rejection, process variations, equipment
failures, operator efficiency, operator absenteeism, tool life, etc., are collected and analyzed for the purpose of progress
reporting. These data are used for performing variance analysis, which would help us to identify critical areas that deserve
immediate attention for corrective actions.

2. CORRECTIVE ACTION

The tasks under corrective action primarily make provisions for an unexpected event. Some examples of corrective actions
are creating schedule flexibility, schedule modifications, capacity modifications, make or buy decisions, expediting the work,
pre-planning, and so on. Due to unforeseen reasons such as, machine breakdown, labour absenteeism, too much rejection

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due to poor material quality etc., it may not be possible to realize the schedule as per the plan. Under such condition, it is
better to reschedule the whole product mix so that we get a clear picture of the situation to progress further. Under such
situation, it is to be re-examined for selecting appropriate course of action. Expediting means taking action if the progress
reporting indicates deviations from the originally set targets. Pre-planning of the whole affair becomes essential in case
the expediting fails to bring the deviated plan to its right path.

Reference
1. TELSANG MT. Industrial Engineering And Production Management.; 2015.

2. Kumar SA, Suresh N. Production and Operations Management. 2nd ed.; 2008.

Set by: Tekleweyni G. MSc. in Material Science and Engineering