Since the middle of 1980s, the steel pipe industry in Korea has confronted with various difficulties including the maturity of demand and import regulation. Therefore it is strongly required to make effective and flexible production management systems to cope with the situation.
In this thesis, first, we analyze the steel pipe industry from a strategic viewpoint and find that the flexibility of production management systems should be considered as a competitive weapon, and second, according to the above results we develop the production scheduling system emphasizing the flexibility. This system consists of three subsystems: data management module, production scheduling module by mathematical model and interactive production scheduling module. The prototype of this system has been positively appreciated by practitioners in the steel pipe industry.
Finally, limitations of this study and suggestions for the further research are outlined.
