An analysis of process industry production and inventory management systems

The process industries — those firms that add value by mixing, separating, forming andror chemical reactions by either batch or continuous mode — continue to lag behind the discrete industries in the identification and implementation of Ž . effective production and inventory management P&IM techniques. A contributing factor is that the process industries have traditionally been lumped together and contrasted from the discrete industries as a whole, thus leading to misunderstandings regarding individual process industries. From site interviews and the literature, we identified four critical dimensions — Ž . planning resource requirements for materials and capacity , tracking resource consumption, control of work-in-process Ž . WIP , and degree of computerization — represented by seven variables by which to contrast and analyze process industries. Based on in-depth field studies of 19 diverse process plants, we find that there exist at least four distinct types of process Ž . Ž . Ž . Ž . industry P&IM systems: 1 simple, 2 common, 3 WIP-controlled, and 4 computerized. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.