Comparative analysis of US-American and German standard production planning and control systems

Up to now, the national markets of standard production planning and control systems (standard-PPC-systems) have been influenced by the structure and the requirements of the local industries and the EDP-technique locally available (e.g. Siemens in Germany). Nowadays, the development of PPC-systems becomes more and more a global competition. Standardization strategies, market policies and expensive developments lead to an international market with a few market leaders. Obviously, US PPC-vendors use modern system technologies. The system functionality especially fulfills the requirements of series production. Furthermore, US systems usually contain an integrated financial system. The German PPC-vendors are more oriented towards small series and nonrepetitive production. These and other conclusions result from a comparative analysis concerning the fulfillment of technical and functional criteria of US and German PPC-systems. The comparison of US and German PPC-systems is based upon a continuous market analysis of 140 PPC-systems in the German speaking market conducted by the Research Institute of Operations Management, a questionnaire sent to 76 US vendors by the same institute and upon a US market guide to manufacturing software. All data were collected or updated in 1994. 130 of all available criteria could be evaluated to compare the two markets.