Sensitivity of 'Push' and 'Pull' strategies to information updating rate

One would expect a continuous production planning and control system to be more sensitive to information inaccuracy than a periodic one. In practice, a major source of information inaccuracy is the updating rate of the perceived system state. This phenomenon is particularly significant in global firms that must employ appropriate technology and procedures for updating the corporate information throughout its branches. The study compares 'Push' and 'Pull' strategies for production planning and control under different updating rates for inventory information. For this purpose, we propose a Pull control mechanism for an environment characterized by inaccurate information. Then we construct a simulation model for a specific flow-shop production process that can be controlled by either the Pull or Push approach. The simulation results show a significant domination of the Pull strategy over Push. The results confirm that the Pull approach protects the flow of materials against machine and market variations, which were known, and also against a lack of information, which is new. The Pull strategy is less sensitive to the information updating rate since it smoothes the materials' flow and thus the inventory information gaps (known versus actual) are much smaller.