Delivery performance in small-to-medium-scale industry in Scandinavia

This article summarizes the results of a study of 30 factories from the approach of ‘controllability engineering.’ Interesting results include: (1) sales forecasting errors often exceed acceptable limits, (2) sales forecasts have strong implications for throughput time, (3) delivery performance can be poor even with high inventory levels, and (4) improving inventory turns of purchased items does not automatically increase transportation costs.