The Evolution of Production Planning and Control Systems and Enabling Information Technologies

Information technology enables management conceptualizations to be realized. This interrelationship is complex for the technology both enables and limits the systems created. This article traces the development of production management systems and their implementation through contemporary information technologies over the past century. This first considers manual information systems used for managing operations within Frederick W. Taylor’s Planning Office. This provided the foundation for later developments dependent on more sophisticated organization structures and cultures, and on improved information technologies’ computational capabilities, data storage and handling capacities. From the mid-1930s through the early 1960s electro-mechanical information processing systems become significant, initially as stand-alone implementations of specific functions then being integrated into more complete production management information systems. These provided a conceptual and practical foundation and many of the ...