Just-enough-information: a new paradigm for production scheduling in a manufacturing supply network

In manufacturing supply networks today, companies are separated by boundaries through which little or no production information flows. Existing production scheduling and inventory control paradigms are not efficient for supply networks of autonomous competing companies, because production information is proprietary and control is sovereign. What is needed to achieve production optimization across the network is a new paradigm for operational control, based on the exchange of Just-Enough-Information (JEI). We have invented a Demand- Availability-Order (DAO) algorithm that creates a `pull' system distributed recursively across computers in a supply network, with each company using only local information. We believe that DAO is the key to JEI. Practical application depends on generalizing DAO and on complementing it with a broad range of related systems.