In recent years there has been a tremendous upsurge of interest in
manufac- turing systems design and analysis. Large industrial companies
have realized that their manufacturing facilities can be a source of
tremendous opportunity if managed well or a huge corporate liability if
managed poorly. In particular industrial managers have realized the
potential of well designed and installed production planning and control
systems. Manufacturing, in an environment of short product life cycles
and increasing product diversity, looks to tech- niques such as
manufacturing resource planning, Just In Time (lIT) and total quality
control among others to meet the challenge. Customers are demanding high
quality products and very fast turn around on orders. Manufacturing
personnel are aware of the lead time from receipt of order to delivery
of completed orders at the customer's premises. It is clear that this
production lead time is, for the majority of manufacturing firms,
greatly in excess of the actual processing or manufacturing time. There
are many reasons for this, among them poor coordination between the
sales and manufacturing function. Some are within the control of the
manufacturing function. Others are not.