Short-term planning of product life cycles

Short-sighted business planning

Nature

Production systems tend to operate on the basis of processing and distribution functions which yield profit, and to neglect other processes involved in the total life of a product. In addition, satisfaction of immediate or superficial consumer desires, can result in inadequate quality control, use of stop gap measures, incomplete planning, and the neglect of the needs of society. In this tradition of manufacturing, there is no future planning to develop technology covering the whole life-cycle of a product, so that resources may be stockpiled at an intermediate stage of production, or discarded as a waste after only partial use. The result is that full potential benefits are not realized.

Claim

Boards of directors of corporations lack vision, are preoccupied with short-term profits, pay too little attention to detail, alienate workers and emphasize cost saving measures at the expense of customer satisfaction resulting in loss of market share and declining national economies.