Production Planning & Inventory Control in the Pre-Deco Industry

Production Planning and Inventory Control (PPIC) is an essential dynamics of the logistical performance of manufacturing organizations. In this paper, we discuss the development of a PPIC system in a process industry. The process manufacturing industry has not embraced the new Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software solutions due to the complexities involved in the software solutions, which do not fit the process industry environment well. Our contribution is to underline the need for a simple and easily understood methodology for this industry. The paper is based on a real-life case study in a batch process industry with high-volume/low-value products. It explains how the company currently operates and how the situation is improved significantly using simple PPIC optimization models. Finally, we give an overview of an area that can further be improved in such industries.