The missing links

Summarises the speech made by Pat McCarthy of Information Engineering Group to the CIM Conference, and reviews the use of planning systems by British Industry; sees MRP systems as office‐based, and asserts they are still geared to weekly cycles rather than the hours and days now being demanded. Avers that we need to capture data more quickly for use on the shopfloor, and insists that this lack of data management is no longer a technical problem. Reviews the information systems that are now becoming available, and presents the key issues that companies need to address in developing their data management systems.