Critical conditions for factory ramp-up planning in SMEs

Abstract

Companies experiencing rapid sales growth need to ramp-up operations and production facilities to meet the increased customer demand. Exporting small and medium sized companies (SMEs) offering new technology in new markets often have to deal with high uncertainty and risk and the ramp up plan needs to be continuously adjusted to changing sales forecasts. Factory planning is a complex task, and includes a wide range of critical decisions. The literature is mainly dominated by research seeking to develop theoretical models and methods for planning support. There is limited empirical research addressing issues related to the actual planning process. Existing methods are mainly developed based on general theoretical terms without taking specific conditions into account. Further research is therefore needed to better adapt current models and methods to specific contexts. This study seeks to bring further understanding of critical conditions for the planning process, by exploring the conditions of the planning process in a real-life context of an SME. The findings are expected to contribute to improved insights to the factory ramp-up planning process in SMEs and better understanding of critical factors that need to be considered.