Production planning and control in small engineer-to-order companies: Understanding difficulties and pragmatic approach

Globalization and advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are changing the business and manufacturing processes. The new model for manufacturing systems, even for mass production industry, is demanding more flexibility and agility in manufacturing installations. Although ICT and Automation Technology (AT) provide most of these features, the manufacturing installation cannot dismiss physical hardware, which comprises machines, tools and special bespoke devices. In this context, tooling companies produce customized hardware in Engineer-to-Order (ETO) environment, for these mass production companies. While most of mass production companies have improved their efficiency to handle these market demands through ERP systems, tooling companies, characterized by the diversity of products and their small size, seem to find difficulties in adopting these systems, in particular to integrate the planning and control of the shop floor. This research aims to understand how tooling companies are dealing pragmatically with their Production Planning and Control (PPC) and understand their difficulties about the use of ERP systems for production planning. Expected contribution is to give an insight of how tooling companies are dealing with PPC, providing deeper understanding about the needs and difficulties in adapting the lighter ERP systems for PPC in typical ETO/SME companies.