TABLE OF CONTENTS Scheduling situations are good, bad, or just plain ugly.
If you cannot predict it, you will find it damn hard to schedule or plan it.
If you cannot come close to following and executing a generated sequence, it may be deceptive to use the term production control.
To plan, you need information, a lot of it. It has to be timely and accurate and come from the manufacturing system and from the physical world.
You need firm and consistent goals and objectives. It is difficult to hit targets attached to a bungee cord or when you are working in a fog.
Scheduling and planning processes need to be flexible and to have flexible options for dealing with risks: minimization and avoidance.
Production control varies greatly from one firm and one plant to the next. It truly ranges from the good and the bad to the ugly. There are situations where effective production control is possible, the appropriate methods are used, and the smooth production that results is something of beauty to behold. However, there are other cases where the inappropriate methods are used for the situation and production control makes the situation worse; forgive them, for they know not what they do. And, there are situations where the manufacturing challenge is so large that it is almost impossible to generate any kind of feasible plan and all production control can do is react to the immediate crisis.
