A NEW CONCEPT FOR MANAGING ONE-OF-A-KIND PRODUCTION

Because of early commitments to price, desired performance and delivery times, the management of uncertainties is a critical factor for planning and execution of a customer order in one-of-a-kind production. The paper addresses this issue by presenting several methods which are combined into a production management concept, to be customized to each individual company. The methods include: 1) combining different planning tasks, 2) utilizing the dialectic nature of planning between customer orders, capacity and materials, 3) gradually decreasing uncertainties, and 4) establishing a link between operations management and the development of management systems by means of organizational learning mechanisms. Management of one-of-a-kind production implies the coordination of many different disciplines and organizational units; therefore an organizational point of view should be adopted to secure ownership to plans and commitments, in addition to the traditional planning and control system's perspective.