The role of hierarchical production planning in food manufacturing SMEs

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in make-to-stock and make-to-order combined strategies in food manufacturing operations. However, most scholarly work to-date has neglected the role of hierarchical production planning (HPP) in guiding small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) implementation of such strategies. The purpose of this paper is to address food SME manufacturers’ readiness to adopt such strategies, in terms of internal integration and their capability to adopt formalised planning approaches.