Multimedia and production management systems

The future production control environment is a network of possibilities. Some of the production management will be automated with bar-codes, automatic data collection devices and direct communication links between the control system and production machines. Simultaneously, a growing part of production management systems turns towards human-oriented multimedia information processing, where a professional user is the key controller and decision maker. The communication environment plays a crucial role in this area. The two ends of production management systems will continue their polarization: there will be real decision-making with lots of possible solutions and 'just-do-it'-type tasks to get things done. Multimedia workstations will not be everybody's tools. No actual benefits can be seen in inventory management or direct order handling. These tasks will continue their evolution towards automated routines. So far in production management, computers have primarily been used for computing.