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Production systems are becoming more and more information intensive activities. Production management is faced with new challenges which demand an overall information approach to production information systems planning. However, production systems are not all alike. Each system presents different information implications for system selection and operation. An information systems view of production information systems is offered. The analysis is based on principles central to systems thinking in general, with specific reference to production systems. Various such systems, including hierarchical, MRP, JIT, OPT and FMS, are then examined from a major aspect of systems design, the concept of system guarantors. Each of these systems has proved successful in certain production environments. However, from an information systems point of view, the question is not always one of net return or claims of increased productivity, but rather who or what will in the final analysis guarantee the system's results.

IT has often been remarked in this journal that, of all the branches of the engineering profession, production engineers are the least articulate. The recent conference at Cranfield accepted this as a regrettable fact and proceeded to discuss the reasons for it, and how to increase the interchange of information between production engineers. In a majority among those attending the conference were members of A.S.L.I.B., but there were a number of production engineers, although these were naturally drawn from the firms most fully aware of the value of information services, and so the conference was to some extent preaching to the converted.

The chapter deals with the promotion of competitiveness of national producers as compared to the main leaders in the industry.

The system management of the process of creating and mastering the production of a new product is based on effective change management, development of organizational and technical management systems, business-to-business interaction systems, business solutions relating to product creation in the industry. Systemization of problems and identification of ways of development of theory and methodology of creation of a new product by the domestic manufacturing companies can be performed by means of implementation of continuous acquisition and life cycle support (CALS) systems.

Today, the fundamental conceptual basis for the formation of information space of an enterprise and application of miscellaneous information systems is the concept of continuous information support of products throughout the entire life cycle – CALS. According to this concept, one can single out the following major objectives which are essential for an enterprise and can be achieved through information technologies: the automation of production management which was conventionally achieved through the use of MICS systems, and today it is achieved due to the use of the so-called ERP/CRM/SCM systems; product data management and automation of design and engineering analysis of structures and processes (PDM/PLM, CAD/CAM/CAE-system); information support of operation and aftersales service, integrated logistic support of products. The information technologies at the present stage are a prerequisite for achieving a competitive advantage by an enterprise, particularly if the enterprise is specialized in the production of high-technology products. The major purpose of information technologies at the enterprise is the maximum effective support of design processes, production processes and other processes running at the enterprise, creation of the information basis which enables the management to take decisions which help the enterprise to achieve a dominant position in the industry sector. For Russian companies, the problem of implementation and effective employment of CALS-technologies as a means of cardinal improvement in quality and competitiveness of science-intensive products, discussed in the chapter, is extremely topical.

For many companies, the employment of these technologies largely determines the ability to survive in the context of an intensifying competitive struggle in the domestic market and can be considered as an indispensable condition for maintaining and expanding the sales of products on the international market.

A lack of visibility into the manufacturer’s production cost information impedes a retailer’s ability to maximize her own profits, especially when market demand is uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of an option contract within a one-period two-echelon supply chain in the presence of asymmetric cost information.

Based on the principal-agent model, the retailer, acting as a Stackelberg leader, offers a menu of option contracts to mitigate the risk of uncertain demand and reveal asymmetric production cost information. The optimal contract in asymmetric and symmetric information scenarios is derived. Finally, the impact of production costs on the optimal contracts and the actors’ profits is explored by numerical experiments.

By comparing the optimal equilibrium solutions in two scenarios, the authors show that asymmetric cost information has a large impact on the optimal option contract and profits. In addition, information rent is affected by the type differential. The results prove that the level of information asymmetry plays a vital role in option contracts and profits.

Different from the existing literature on private demand information, this paper considers a supply chain with asymmetric cost information in the context of option contracts. Interestingly, not only the production cost but also the probability of a low production cost can affect the option strike price. In addition, from the perspective of the manufacturer, a high cost does not always bring a high information rent. These findings can provide some guidance to decision-makers.

The purpose of this paper is to study the information support technologies of integrated production planning control for OEM (original equipment manufacturer) driven networked manufacturing systems, and offer implications to firms for implementing networked manufacturing.

OEM driven networked manufacturing and its operations modes and support technologies are first discussed. Then, integration framework of production planning and control is proposed and relative technologies are discussed. Finally, a case of the application of information support technologies in networked manufacturing is illustrated.

Both theory analysis and case experience show that information integration and sharing are critical for effective operations of OEM driven networked manufacturing and an integrated production planning and control system can benefit firms for successfully operating a networked manufacturing system.

It is valuable to develop and apply integrated production planning and control systems in OEM driven networked manufacturing, Firms should pay more attention to information sharing and communication with partners and utilize advanced information technologies to synchronize the operations of partners.

Integration framework of production planning and control proposed in this paper has originality and the technology strategies are also practical. Managerial ideas, technology framework and application strategies of integrated production planning and control are helpful for firms to implement OEM driven networked manufacturing.

In response to increasing demand for a fully customized and individualized home environment, mass customization (MC) has been suggested as an effective strategy to fulfill the customer’s customization needs while keeping production cost-effectiveness. However, in current practice, the implementation of the MC in the industrialized housing industry has not achieved an ideal level. Little effort was devoted to customer value generation and achieving lean production in a multi-disciplinary MC environment. In this concern, a highly efficient and flexible production information system is expected to capture accurately the customer’s demand and efficiently perform work planning for encouraging customer involvement and mass efficiency production.

To gain an insight into the development of the MC production information system for the housing industry and to depict the interaction among system modules, this study used a design science research methodology for a case study of customized cabinet production information system development.

A prototype of the production information system was proposed in this paper, supported by three information technologies to facilitate the MC implementation in the millwork manufacturer. A focus group discussion method was carried out for evaluating the system feasibility and the subsequent survey analysis on the virtual reality (VR) interface experiment. The evaluation process results showed that the VR interface is an effective medium for design information communication and encourages customer involvement. Most participants believed that the proposed production information system could generally benefit the MC implementation and improve production efficiency.

This study integrated lean production principles along with building information modelling, VR and discrete-event simulation in the production information system to assist the manufacturer in effectively handling variant product information and enabling quicker reactions in response to diverse customer requirements in housing industries. The coordination among system modules and the managed information flow could be a valuable reference for future MC production system development in housing industries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) impacts firm performance, by changing the information processing ability of a firm.

It takes the firm as information processing unit to coordinate production in an industry with two‐stage production and demand uncertainty. ICT is assumed to improve the information processing ability. It models that, conditional on the structure of markets described by level of uncertainty, a firm with information processing ability comes into being endogenously from market‐coordinated production, with profit generated.

It is argued that the profit of the firm depends on both the structure of markets, and the firm's information processing ability. The improving information processing ability increases firm profitability as long as market‐coordinated production persists elsewhere. However, when the improving information processing ability enables enough firms to compete with no market‐coordinated production left, it decreases profitability of all firms. Finally, case studies on the wholesale and retail industry and the finance and insurance industry of ten OECD countries presents consistent evidence that ICT does not necessarily bring better performance.

This paper is an innovation based on several streams of literature to model a firm with the consideration of specialization, demand uncertainty, and information processing ability. It thus provides a different perspective on how ICT contributes to firm performance. It theoretically and empirically shows that such contributions are conditional on market structure of a certain industry.

This research widens the scope of the use of postponement by addressing how the generic supply chain structure and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affects the postponement decision, based on empirical data of Chinese manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta.

Case analysis, cross‐case comparisons, semi‐structured interviews.

A cross‐case analysis including study of the downstream structure, downstream relationship, upstream structure, upstream relationship, production method and inventory position produced a postponement classification into five categories: balanced structure without customer information; customer dominated; manufacturer dominated; balanced structure with loose suppliers, and finally virtual supply chain. Based on this classification, two propositions are postulated: when a supply chain has a balanced structure, it should use speculation or production postponement. When the supply chain has an unbalanced structure, it should use purchasing postponement or product development postponement.

This study is exploratory in nature, and more empirical data is needed to further validate the postulated results. Another limitation of the study is in its measurement of postponement, measured in this instance by the production method and inventory positions used. Other characteristics of postponement may be included in future research.

This research has extended the scope of the use of postponement by addressing how the generic supply chain structure and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affects the postponement decision.

Addresses postponement on the level of the supply chain, rather than company‐level. Addresses how the supply chain structure (balanced/unbalanced) and information sharing/relationship among supply chain actors affect the postponement decision.

This paper seeks to fill the literature gap that lacks of exploring negotiation strategy with competing partners under asymmetric production-cost information. The purpose of this paper is to examine firms’ optimal contract negotiation strategies in buyer–supplier–supplier triads where there are concurrent negotiations between the retailer and two competing manufacturers.

The authors consider a two-echelon supply chain, in which the retailer has the option of segmented or unified negotiation policy, whereas the two competing manufacturers can withhold or share production cost information in the negotiation. Based on game theory, the authors derive the manufacturers’ optimal wholesale prices and the retailer’s optimal retail prices with eight possible scenarios. Optimal strategic choices and operational decisions are then explored through the comparative analysis of equilibriums of eight possible scenarios.

The authors find that the retailer will adopt different negotiation strategies depending on manufacturers’ decisions on sharing or withholding their production-cost information. When both manufacturers share their production-cost information, the retailer will adopt a unified negotiation policy. The high-efficiency manufacturer should adopt the same information-sharing strategy as the low-efficiency manufacturer in order to gain more profit.

The modelling helps to bring further clarity in supply chain contract negotiation by offering a conceptual framework to enhance our understanding of the effects of information-sharing strategy and negotiation policy in the negotiation process form the perspectives of all engaging parties. Managerial insights derived from the research will enable retailers and manufacturers to make informed and better strategic and operational decisions to improve market competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to define supply chain information utilisation and explore how its antecedents impact shared information utilisation in information receiver’s planning processes.

The analysis is based on a literature review and exploratory case study of three supplier dyads of original equipment manufacturers. This study presents a four-phase model of supply chain information utilisation, and identifies how information sharing, information quality, and intended information usage are antecedents of actual usage of information shared in supply chains. In the dyads, 35 potential information utilisation situations are analysed.

Inter- and intra-organisational factors are antecedents of information utilisation, by their effects on the four phases of utilisation. Composite information sharing, social network governance, human process involvement, and formal planning processes are important antecedents, which are not much emphasised in the literature.

The study focusses on routinised sharing of formal demand-related planning information in supply chain dyads. The analysis is based on three case dyads which are chosen to be complementary in several respects, and where there is access to rich data.

Understanding phases and antecedents could support managers in developing information sharing strategies.

The literature does not explicitly consider information utilisation, or related antecedents or effects. However, by defining information utilisation and proposing a multi-phase utilisation model, this study can explain the performance effect of information sharing. In addition, the composite information variable is defined. This is the first attempt to conceptualise and explore antecedents of information utilisation in supply chains.