Production control: A universal conceptual framework

This paper attempts to provide a universal conceptual framework for the function of production control. The existing literature on production control deals mainly with the mechanical engineering industry. This paper attempts first to provide a framework suitable for all types of production industry. The second purpose of the paper is to support the view that the function of production planning uses production engineering skills to plan the means to be used to make products, and production control uses the very different scheduling skills to programme the work. There is some confusion in the literature about the division between these functions. Here the term ‘production control’ is preferred to the term ‘production planning and control’. Finally, thee is confusion in the literature over the meaning of the terms ‘stock control’ and ‘inventory control’. This paper adopts the convention that stock control is an ‘ordering system based on re-order levels’; inventory control is a feed-back control system for controlling the level of investment in a company, and both are integral parts of the function of production control.