The need for a systems view of production management

Computer production management systems are far more common than they were even five years ago, as a result of reductions in the costs of computer hardware and the growing use of package software by both large and small firms. However, there are still many problems associated with such computer systems. Though the symptoms are somewhat different depending on whether we are concerned with large or small companies, the root cause is the same: a lack of any clear philosophy of what production management systems do and how they should be designed. In addition companies face a need to integrate hardware from many different suppliers and the ability to do this would also be helpful to smaller firms. At the moment such integration is difficult to carry out.