A study on the manufacturing planning and control in a beef cutting plant of a Swedish company

A recent case study on production and inventory control in the beef cutting process of a Swedish plant has exposed some ideas which might be of economic interest. This plant together with five other plants having a centralized production management supplies the wholesalers and cured meat producers in Southern Sweden with different meat products. This unit also executes a considerable cutting volume of cattle on contract. The number of cattle cut up (in predefined pieces) is determined according to available capacity which means ‘you sell what you cut’. The production system characteristics such as the multi-product situation with joint production, in many cases leads to shortages for some products and high level of capital tied up in inventory for other products at the same time. The product perishability, the divergent anatomical product structure, different production lead-times for the products because of tendering and the products’ various demand patterns are other essential factors which also have to be considered. This is followed by an approach suggested to conform production and market demand, i.e. ‘to cut what you can sell’. This paper will review some existing theoretical models and practices in literature and discuss their relevance as a contribution to increasing knowledge of this type of production. Attention will especially be paid to ordering routines, planning procedures and information handling. In order to provide conditions for a market-oriented production and more efficient manufacturing planning, the information and control needs are investigated.