Intrafactory Planning

an activity of a workers’ collective in socialist enterprises in establishing targets for the workshops and production sections and in working out measures to ensure their fulfillment. According to the period of time for which the targets are worked out, intrafactory planning is divided into prospective, current, and operative planning.

Prospective intrafactory planning defines the target for the enterprise and its subdivisions for long time periods (ordinarilly five years) or for time periods needed for the solution of major tasks confronting the enterprise, such as conversion or changeover to new types of production. In prospective plans, the specializations of the enterprise and its subdivisions are defined, and directions for improvement of the technology and organization of production and the basic targets for increasing efficiency of plant operation are established. Prospective plans become the basic form of intrafactory planning, since they define the major long-term tasks confronting the collective of workers.

Current intrafactory planning is used in compiling annual plans, that is, the technical-industrial-financial plan of the enterprise, which includes the development of production, technology, the economic setup, and finances. This plan consists of sections (outlines) on production and the sale of products, a section developed in consideration of the needs of the consumer and the possibilities of satisfying him; improvements in the quality of output; cost of production, including the lowering of expenses per unit at every stage of production; labor, in which the number of workers, the output of labor, and a wages fund are established; use of fixed assets and production capacities; use of material and energy resources (raw materials, stock, fuel, power); increases in production efficiency, based on technical and organizational perfection of production; introduction of new production capacity; and a financial plan. At the progressive enterprises of the USSR, a plan of dealing with sociocultural and domestic-facilities problems is also being developed, based on use of funds for sociocultural measures, housing construction, and material incentives. The development of a technical-industrial-financial plan stems from targets of the state plan. Under the present conditions these targets are given as a small set of the most important indexes, whereas under the system of intrafactory planning a complete plan will be drawn up based on all indexes of the work of the enterprise. Current intrafactory planning is actualized in the plans of workshops and production sections, on the basis of which intraproductive plant profit-and-loss accounting is done; it is also actualized in operative intrafactory planning in which targets are set for separate short periods of time.

Technical-economic and productivity planning differ in their contents. The first includes the whole system of technical-economic indicators; the second is planning of the product range and production volume. The most important technical-economic indicators are total income received by the enterprise, profitability of production, sale of output of actual production, the schedule of the basic types of output, and efficiency of labor. In addition, technical-economic indicators include turnover of circulating assets, cost of production, quality of production, incremental output/asset ratio, and other factors.

The directives of the Twenty-fourth Congress of the CPSU on the 1971-75 five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR have established that enterprises being managed by means of the targets of this plan must develop their own five-year plans, guaranteeing fulfillment of the goals of the five-year plan with a minimum expense of labor and material resources. It is imperative to raise the incentive role of wages and of long-term economic quotas in solving these problems.