In recent years there has been a tremendous upsurge of interest in manufacΒ turing systems design and analysis. Large industrial companies have realized that their manufacturing facilities can be a source of tremendous opportunity if managed well or a huge corporate liability if managed poorly. In particular industrial managers have realized the potential of well designed and installed production planning and control systems. Manufacturing, in an environment of short product life cycles and increasing product diversity, looks to techΒ niques such as manufacturing resource planning, Just In Time (lIT) and total quality control among others to meet the challenge. Customers are demanding high quality products and very fast turn around on orders. Manufacturing personnel are aware of the lead time from receipt of order to delivery of completed orders at the customer's premises. It is clear that this production lead time is, for the majority of manufacturing firms, greatly in excess of the actual processing or manufacturing time. There are many reasons for this, among them poor coordination between the sales and manufacturing function. Some are within the control of the manufacturing function. Others are not.