Production control in the food processing industry: The need for flexibility in operations scheduling

This paper analyses the problems of production scheduling in the dairy product industry where variety and sell-by date constraints have to be taken into account. Using the formalization of priorities as a basis, attempts to demonstrate that a thorough understanding of the relation between a formal scheduling model and its implementation permits one to grasp the profound changes in industrial processing systems at present. With this analysis new representations of possible changes can be created and the idea of a transformation of work organization based on a new form of production management can be developed.