In the era of Industry 4.0 and digitalization, planning solutions need to co-exist with each other and be able to manage higher complexity and with a higher performance. As the concept smart production planning and control is a part of industry 4.0, it is highly relevant to study and is in this paper explored on the four elements of smart PPC (real-time data management, dynamic production planning and re-planning, autonomous production control, and continuous learning). This paper provides a framework for linking the four elements of smart PPC with data quality issues in state-of-the-art production planning and control environments. Maintaining a high standard of data quality in the business processes aids the organization to stay competitive in its market. Hence, our assumption is that a high level of data quality is needed in production planning and control for a high-performance outcome. The empirical part of our study results in a bar-chart of seven data quality problems and their occurrences together with their causes in PPC. According to the empirical data results, inaccurate data entries is the most common data quality problem related to PPC. The causes of the inaccurate data entries can be linked to human resources and organizational control. Future research should strengthen the validity of the proposed linkages between data quality problems and elements of smart PPC and implications on strategic, tactical, and operational planning levels.

To sustain competitiveness in the automotive industry, industrial companies seek new ways of increasing and improving efficiency and flexibility of their production systems. By embracing the shift towards smart factories, industrial companies need to consider both short term and long-term investments. When implementing digitalized solutions, automotive factories need to understand what initiatives that need to be made, and when. This case study is done at Scania CV AB in Oskarshamn, and more specifically in the logistics department inside the main assembly. As Scania forecasts a growing demand of their products, the company needs to increase their internal delivery capacity and requires an improved product and process quality on a long-term basis using digital technology. Based on this problem, the purpose of this study is to analyse how digitalization will affect the current manufacturing strategy and how digitalization may improve the current manufacturing strategy. The results of the case study show that Scania CV AB in Oskarshamn should start to implement digitalization by introducing compatible technologies and by changing their organization structure. A roadmap is presented suggesting short-term and long-term objectives that links digitalization to manufacturing strategy of the case study. 

In the strategic planning of manufacturing, companies should assess their competitive advantage with the means of performance measures (PMs) and achieve a consistency with the decision making. The literature on PMs shows that there are mainly two views of PM development. The first view is the PM diversity view which highlights the importance of using a wide set of PMs. The other view is PM alignment, which advocates the alignment between PMs and manufacturing strategy. Although the rich literature on PMs, research on PMs in Small- and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is limited but shows that the use of PMs in SMEs is typically financially focused, informal, and unstructured. The use of this approach in SMEs is likely to hinder the achievement of strategic objectives. This paper contributes to the research of PMs in manufacturing SMEs by analysing the relationships between the use of PMs and certain attributes of the SME. The used approach is multiple case study for exploring linkages between PM diversity and alignment with the manufacturing strategy and firm context. The data collection of each SME includes several strategic manufacturing attributes such as type of production system, manufacturing capabilities, and no. of PMs and specific measurements. The findings indicate a strong relationship between PM diversity and firm turnover, whereas the relationship seems weak between PM diversity and manufacturing capability. Furthermore, the relationship between PM alignment and competitive priorities indicate no alignment for SMEs, whereas the alignment between production system and competitive priorities seems to be stronger.

Manufacturing is a crucial part to organisational success in an industrial SME, and therefore manufacturing strategy formulation is of great importance for small businesses. Recent research suggests that there is a need to adapt frameworks and procedures for manufacturing strategy formulation to small- and medium sized companies. This study describes a modified work process, which was also tested for formulation of manufacturing strategy formulation in a small industrial company in Sweden.

This paper investigates 12 cases and the linkages between manufacturing capabilitiesand manufacturing output at a plant level. Moreover, linkages between productionsystems and manufacturing outputs are explored as well as the alignment betweencompany size and manufacturing capabilities. As such, this paper gives insight into howcompanies operate, with respect to operations strategy. Which strategic levers that arefocused on and which that are left behind, is furthermore considered. The study alsocontributes to the research field of operations strategy by identifying areas andenvironments where companies find it particularly hard to align their operations.

Swedish production area has previously been defined and is still in need for some clarification. This paper gives an overview and draws conclusions about trends of aspects like number of authors, type of research methodology used, and research topics presented in the former SPS:s conferences. The aim of the paper is to describe practical phenomena using data from the 254 papers and the methodology used is statistical sampling. The empirical results show that there are mainly two research methodologies that dominate during the years of the conference, namely experimental design and case study. Thus, the research approach empirical research dominates the conference.

Det här bidraget syftar till att beskriva hur ett företag kan anpassa sin produktion mot marknaden. I en fallstudie gjord under 2010-2011 visas att dagens val av produktionsprocess inte är anpassad för marknaden, då produktionsprocessen inte är lika flexibel som marknaden är varierande. För att undersöka detta problem närmare gjordes en produktprofilering som analyserar och utvärderar relevanta aspekter för produkter och marknad, tillverkning och investeringar. Dessa aspekter matchas sedan mot egenskaper för olika processval och på så vis får man en visuell bild av hur väl produktionen är anpassad till marknaden. För att kunna föreslå förbättringar för produktionsprocessen genomfördes vidare en analys av företagets produktionskapacitet och kapacitetsutnyttjande. Resultatet visar att beläggningen visar en tydlig säsongsvariation. Utnyttjandegraden och OEE-värdet (OEE är ett nyckeltal som används för att mäta, övervaka och förbättra en anläggnings produktionseffektivitet) är högt vid tillverkning av högvolymprodukterna, vilket visar att produktionsprocessen är väl anpassad efter dessa produkters egenskaper. Däremot är utnyttjandegraden lägre för lågvolymprodukterna som inte tillverkas så ofta. För att kunna anpassa produktionen mer mot marknadstrenden har ett antal förbättringsförslag lagts som bland annat innebär att utöka flexibiliteten och kapaciteten i packdelen genom att diversifiera packprocessen i två linor.

Den här artikeln beskriver hur ett företag kan anpassa sin produktion mot marknaden. En fallstudie utförd under 2010-2011 visar att dagens val av produktionsprocess i ett företag inte är anpassad för marknaden eftersom produktionsprocessen inte är lika flexibel som marknaden är varierande. För att undersöka detta problem närmare gjordes en produktprofilering som analyserar och utvärderar relevanta aspekter för produkter och marknad, tillverkning och investeringar. Dessa aspekter matchas sedan mot egenskaper för olika processval och på så vis får man en visuell bild av hur väl produktionen är anpassad till marknaden. För att kunna föreslå förbättringar för produktionsprocessen genomfördes vidare en analys av företagets produktionskapacitet och kapacitetsutnyttjande. Resultatet visar att beläggningen visar en tydlig säsongsvariation. Utnyttjandegraden och OEE-värdet (OEE är ett nyckeltal för att mäta, övervaka och förbättra en anläggnings produktionseffektivitet) är högt vid tillverkning av högvolymprodukterna, vilket visar att produktionsprocessen är väl anpassad efter dessa produkters egenskaper. Däremot är utnyttjandegraden lägre för lågvolymprodukterna som inte tillverkas så ofta. För att kunna anpassa produktionen mer mot marknadstrenden har ett antal förbättringsförslag lagts som bland annat innebär att utöka flexibiliteten och kapaciteten i packdelen genom att diversifiera packprocessen i två linor.

Research has shown that alignment between manufacturing strategy and decisions regarding automation are often of an ad hoc nature, i.e. the support for automation decisions is poor. Support tools to find an appropriate level of automation are thus needed in order to achieve more efficient and robust production systems. The methodology presented in this paper contains five sub-processes where the chosen level of automation is aligned with the manufacturing strategy. Together they form an automation strategy, which secures a desired direction of the firm and also supports robustness and reliability of the manufacturing system due to the holistic approach chosen.