Manufacturing and

Production Information
Systems

Archana Mehta
MIS Functional Aspects
MIS is an integral collection of functional
information systems, each supporting
particular functional areas.
Manufacturing and Production
Function
 Manufacturing and Production function is
responsible for producing the firm’s goods and
services.

 An efficient Manufacturing and Production

function should be able to
 To produce goods and services in quantities
and in time to meet customer needs
 To produce goods and services at the lowest
possible costs
 To produce goods and services of desirable
quality
Role of Information for Manufacturing
function
 The role of information in a manufacturing company is
summarized in the illustration. Consider the three main
flows crossing an enterprise system—material, money and
information. It is easy to understand the specific
importance of this information. Material flow constrains
money flow, that is, no payment until delivery. Information
flow constraints material flow, that is, there is no delivery
until shipment documentation is issued. Information flow
constrains money flow, because there is no payment until
an invoice is issued.
 A manufacturing information system is therefore an enabler
to reaching higher levels of financial performance.
Conversely, a poorly designed and tuned information
system definitely hurts the plant’s ability to serve the
company’s goal of sustaining and increasing profits.
Manufacturing and Production IS
The manufacturing MIS monitors and controls the flow of
materials, products, and services through the
organization
It is a computer-based system that works in conjunction
with other functional information systems to support
the firm's management in solving problems that relate
to manufacturing the firm's products
It performs the following activities:
 Design and engineering
 Master production scheduling and inventory control
 Process control
 Quality control and testing
Application of IT in Manufacturing
and Production
Manufacturing and production management use the computer both
as :
1. As conceptual system providing production information system
2. As physical system providing aids in manufacturing
 Computer Aided Design (CAD)
 Computer aided manufacturing (CAM)
 Robotics

IT enabled manufacturing and production Information system include

 Inventory control – specially to keep record of raw materials
 Followed by Material Requirement Planning (MRP) – took
inventory management in comprehensive manner
 Systems further refined – Manufacturing resource planning
 Other areas covered – manufacturing process, quality control,
cost control, industrial engineering
Manufacturing and Production IS include
both Physical and Conceptual Concepts

Executive
Information
CAM System
Manufacturing Other
CAD Information functional
Robotics System information
The systems

Physical Production
System The CBIS

Legend :

Physical System

Conceptual system

Both physical and conceptual system

Manufacturing and Production IS
Input subsystems Output subsystems
Industrial Product Design
Engineering
Manufacturing Facility Design
Intelligence D Production/
A Manufacturing
Inventory Data
T Quality
Vendor Data A
B Cost
Marketing Data A Inventory
S MRP
Labour Union Data
E
MRP II
Environment Data JIT
Inputs to the Manufacturing IS
 Production Data: data on production process
 Inventory Data: Inventories of raw material, goods in
progress, finished goods.
 Vendor Data: Source of raw material
 Personnel/union/labour data: Awareness about the labour
market, unions and personnel performance
 External Environment Data: Raw material prices and labour
availability
 Industrial Engineering Subsystem: Does analysis of
manufacturing and production system and makes
recommendations, sets the manufacturing standards.
Standards are stored in DBMS and compared with actual.
 Production Manufacturing Subsystem: Focuses on raw
materials, labour, energy (electricity, fuel etc), and
machinery.
Outputs of Manufacturing IS
1. Product Design (Production Engineering):
technical specifications of a product are finalized.
CAD (Computer Aided Design) and CAE (Computer
Aided Engineering) automate these aspects. Both of
these are used to design a product before it gets into
production, and to test it for various features as
safety, reliability, ease of production and use etc.
The complete design can be scanned and analyzed.

2. Facility Design: Planning of facility to manufacture.

Computers are used to design plant layouts – using
mathematical models and simulators. These layout
algorithms may construct the layout from scratch or
they may improve upon on already specified layout.
Outputs of Manufacturing IS
3. Production: Process of making new products from raw
materials as per the design specifications.

 Computer Aided Design (CAD): Assists in design of the

product that is to be manufactured.
 Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM): usage of
computers in manufacturing operations - monitoring of
production processes e.g. monitoring and controlling
temperature and pressure in a chemical plant
 Computer Numeric Control (CNC) used as control of
manufacturing process e.g. precision shaping of tool
 Robotics: Performance of motor activities earlier done by
humans, e.g. welding, assembling, mining etc. Helps
firms cut cost, achieve level of quality and also perform
hazardous tasks.
Outputs of Manufacturing IS
4. Quality System: It aims to ensure quality
products/services.

 Edwards Deming coined the term Total Quality

Management (TQM). Fundamental beliefs of TQM are:
1. Quality is defined by the customer
2. Quality is achieved by management and labour
3. Quality is organization wide responsibility.
 Quality Control (QC): Detects existing quality deficiencies
and rectifies them.
 Quality Assurance (QA): Prevention of future problems –
requires discrete definition of each step of a process and
ensuring that organization sticks to them.
Outputs of Manufacturing IS
5. Cost System: Aims to ensure that products and
services are produced at the lowest possible costs.
Standard costing and historical costing is used to
keep control over cost.

6. Inventory System: Inventory master file contains

basic data about each item, including the unique
identification code for each item, the description,
number of units in hand, number of units on order,
and the recorder point (the number of units in
inventory that triggers a decision to recorder to
prevent a stock out).
Material Requirements Planning
(MRP)
Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) programs help
coordinate thousands of inventory items when demand for
one item depends on demand for another. MRP systems
determine when finished products are needed, then work
backward to determine deadlines and resources needed to
complete the final product on schedule.

Components of MRP:
1. Production scheduling system - produces a master
production schedule that encompasses the longest lead
time plus the longest production time.
2. Bill of materials. Converts the gross requirements into the
net requirements.
3. Capacity Requirements Planning system works with MRP
system to keep production within plant capacity.
4. Order Release System produces reports for shop floor and
purchasing
 An MRP System
Purchasing
system
Bill of 3. Capacity
Customer
material requirements
order file
file planning Order release
Sales report
forecast
file
1.Production 2. Material Planned 4.Order
Finished- scheduling Master requirements order release
goods system produc- planning schedule system
inventory tion system
file schedule
Order release
Planning reports
Produc- report
Performance reports
tion Raw Exception reports
capacity materials
file Changes to Shop floor
inventory planned orders control
file system
Manufacturing Resource Planning
(MRP-II)
The purpose is to integrate MRP with all
systems that affect materials management
 Network scheduling
 Improved customer service and
productivity
 Organizational systems
 Accounting information system
An MRP II System
Other functional
Executive
information systems
information
system
Order Purchasing
entry

Material
Billing requirements Receiving
planning

Accounts Accounts
receivable General payable
ledger
Just-In-Time (JIT)
Inventory and materials delivered right before usage

When high inventory levels are kept, a company’s money is tied up in

unused inventory. This means higher costs for the company. A
Just-in-time (JIT) inventory approach ensures inventory and
materials are delivered only when they are needed. This maintains
inventories at their lowest possible level, but insures materials are
on-hand in time for production.
Although JIT is beneficial, it also makes a business vulnerable to
supply chain disruptions – whether internal or external. For
example, if a machine breaks down that makes a component
another unit needs to assemble the product, assembly may need
to stop due to lack on components.

 Faster material flow

 Small lot size
 Timing
A sample model of Manufacturing
Information System
Output
Input subsystems Data Information

subsystems
Accounting Production
information subsystem
system
Internal D
sources A Inventory
subsystem
Industrial T
engineering Users
system
A
B Quality
Environmental subsystem
sources
A
S
Manufacturing
intelligence E Cost
subsystem subsystem