Sales and production systems: partners not enemies in an informated organisation

Considers how many organisations see the sales function as a totally disconnected activity from manufacturing; the expectation of the sales department is that production will manufacture whatever they have succeeded in securing orders for, in whatever time scale they have needed to agree with the customer to secure the order. Manufacturing is then often perceived to be the cause of all the organisation's ills because the effects caused by unrealistic expectations in the sales function manifest themselves in the manufacturing arena. Much effort is expended in dealing with the effects by trying to make manufacturing more efficient rather than trying to understand and resolve the root causes which invariably lies in the disconnect between commercial and operational functions. The paper considers the need for manufacturing and/or sales systems to be able to provide easily assimilated information on the current capabilities of the factory.