The use of database techniques in production control- a practical example from the aerospace industry

Over the last fifteen years Short Brothers, the Northern Ireland Aerospace Company, has developed individual batch systems handling all areas of finance and production. This has led to the typical situation of many stand along batch systems and many diverse files. These systems have grown in size and complexity both in terms of the information they hold and in the sophistication of the processing carried out. With regard to the production applications, information first enters the system when a part number in allocated in the Drawing Office, and thereafter as it progresses through Production Engineering, Material Control, Tool Design, more and more reference data is added to the files. Delivery programmes are fed in for all products and progress is monitored against those programmes. Consequently there are large files of information, some of which is duplicated and most of which, because of the standard file management techniques used is difficult to access. To find a firm basis for forward development both of central integrated batch systems and on-line systems, Shorts chose to use an Integrated Data Management System (IDMS) software package supplied by International Computers Ltd. (ICL). The paper discusses the initial central database development and where it will fit in with future distributed systems and data.