The decision making process of your company is really integrated?

The paper describes the development of a study of production planning decision-making process. The internal and the external integration of the supply chain have become essential for many industries. However, according to a global survey of the supply chain: companies have put so much attention about supply chain integration that they have forgotten about the internal integration. The literature about internal integration defines it as a key element in the performance of the company and the entire supply chain. Besides there is a problem of misconception of their own level of internal integration. Companies could trust to be integrated based in misconceptions or incomplete information. This could lead to miss valuable synergies that could reduce the overall cost. Using a survey among production planning practitioners, we investigate the decision-making process of the internal planning, operation scheduling and inventory control at the shop level. The degree of integration is analysed using the decision-making process and other drivers suggested in other studies. We conclude that many companies have a misalignment in the implementation of their philosophies. Consequently, the possibility of enhance is lost by silo decisions and managers should implement the internal integration practices in the different areas of the production planning