Chapter Five Planning and Control

Planning and Control Operations planning and control is concerned with managing the ongoing activities of the operations so as to satisfy the customer demand. All operations require plans and require controlling, although the degree of formality and details may vary.

Application of Planning and Control Service Planning Manufacturing planning Project planning Main objective is coordinating between supply and demand.

Example of Planning and Control Consider the following example of a routine surgery in a hospital showing how supply and demand situation are coordinated to satisfy a patient. Planning Much of the planning is done when potential patient is booked for surgery, for example; Doctors and nurses are already informed. Appropriate pre-operative and post-operative care is organised.

Planning and Control Control Patient arrives and admitted. Patient checked to make sure all information provided is correct. Blood, if required will be cross matched and reserved. Medication required will be made available. Last minute changes may require some degree of re-planning for example patient show unexpected symptoms. If symptoms make it compulsory rescheduling may be required for this patient.

Definition of Planning Planning can be defined as follows Planning is a formalization of what is intended to happen at some time in the future. For example an undergraduate student takes formal admission in a university to complete a bachelor degree in coming four years.

Features of Planning A plan does not guarantee that an event will actually happen, it is a statement of intention. For example By taking admission does not guarantee that the student will necessarily obtain his or her degree. Although plans are based on expectations, during their implementation things do not always happen as expected. For example an undergraduate student studying for full time bachelor degree changes his or her course to distance learning or external degree due to change in circumstances. This may take more than four years as initially planned.

Control Control on the other hand is defined as a process of coping with any changes that affect the plan.

Comparison of Planning and Control Planning is deciding What activities should take place in the operation? When they should take place? What resources should be allocated to them Control is Understanding what is actually happening in the operation Deciding whether there is a significant deviation from what should be happening (If there is deviation) changing resources in order to affect the operation’s activities.

Types of Planning and Control Long Term Midterm Short Term

Long Term Planning Long-term Planning Control Long-term plans are drawn for a long period involving years of developing a facility. Consider an example of planning a Hospital for 2000 Patients. For long-term planning of hospital following steps will be taken. Use forecast of likely demand. Similarly resources will be planned in an aggregate form. Budget will be planned.

Midterm Planning This type of plans are for shorter period involving months and year. Plans are normally concerned with more details and re-planning as compared to long-term planning and control. Medium-term plans might look ahead to assess the overall demand which operation must fulfil in a partially disaggregated manners. Resources are also set at disaggregated levels. Contingencies are put place which allow slight deviation from plans.

Short term Planning There is only possibility of ‘intervention’ if things are not going according to plan. At this stage demand is assessed on a totally disaggregated bases. Individual patients will have identifies by names, specific time slot booked their treatment. In short-term planning understanding of priorities will form the background to decision-making. Managers do not get time to make detailed calculations.

Time Horizon between Planning and Control Hours/days Days/weeks/months Months/years Long-term planning and control Uses aggregated demand forecasts Determines resources in aggregated form Objectives set in largely financial terms Medium-term planning and control Uses partially disaggregated demand forecasts Determines resources and contingencies Objectives set in both financial and operations terms Short-term planning and control Uses totally disaggregated forecasts or actual demand Makes interventions to resources to correct deviations from plans Ad hoc consideration of operations objectives.

Activities of Planning and Control There are four major activities of planning and control shown in the following Diagram Sequencing refers to the order in which planning activities and control activities are undertaken. Concentrate on class exercise. Scheduling refers to the time when activities are to be performed. Loading refers to the work load allocated or assigned to any work station. Concentrate class exercise Monitoring and control refers to question whether activities are going according to plan, if there are deviation re-planning is undertaken to put plan back on track.

Planning and Control Activities Scheduling Loading Sequencing Monitoring and control When to do things? In what order to do things? How much to do? Are activities going to plan?

Thank You!