The majority of the commercially available systems developed for capacity planning have been designedf or organisationsw hich are involved with make-to-stockm anufacturingT. heses ystemsa re difficult to implementi n bespokem anufacturing( make-to-ordero) rganisationss ince they are unable to accommodateth e requirementso f the volatile productione nvironment. This thesisi dentifies the uniqueo peratingc haracteristicos f the manufacturinge nvironmenta ssociated with bespokem anufacturingw hich caused ifficulty with the implementationo f commerciallya vailable systemsT. he findings from this investigationa re usedt o formulatea design for a capacityp lanning systemw hich fulfils the unique requirementso f the bespokem anufacturinge nvironment. The proposed system executes the capacity planning function at two separate levels of detail by integrating rough cut capacity planning with finite capacity planning. The two planning mechanisms are also integrated with a shop floor data collection system which has been designed for the assembly environment. Data interaction is achieved between the capacity planning modules and the shop floor data collection system via an Interface ManagemenSt ystem which ensurest hat the scheduled ata containedi n the individual systemsr emainsi n synchronisationa t all times. The capacity planning system also includes the design and development of a large scale display facility which is able to accommodateth e large volume of scheduled ata required to be viewed for finite capacity planning. This facility has been designed using multiple co-ordinated screens which are linked by a local area network. A data interface and parallel processing facility is incorporated in the design which enable the processing of a software application to be distributed over multiple nodes.