Production management software suitable for group work

Group work on shop floor level gains an increasing importance, because it enables better usage of capacities, mutual help in difficult situations and mutual learning support. Higher customer orientation causes more unpredicted situations that increasingly demand decentralized short term decision making. Principles of wholistic tasks, of flat hierarchies with distributed responsibilities and latest research about gaining and use of experience at shop floor level form an approach of cooperative an coordinated decision making. The task of scheduling is seen as a task that requires much joint decision making within a group, as well as a high degree of coordination with remote departments. The proposed approach postulates enhanced functionality of shop floor control software (SFC), hardware that enables joint decision making (whiteboard architecture) for groups and interacting networking software that allows to use company wide data and software applications of other departments.