Single use plan is the term used in the context of the planning aspect of management as the name suggests single use plans refer to those plans that are made for one time only depending on the situation and requirement of the management. In order to get a better idea about this term one should look at some of the important features of single use plans –
Characteristics of Single Use Plans
Specific Purpose
The first and foremost feature of single use plan is that these plans are made for a specific purpose only in the sense that once that specific purpose or problem is resolved then these plans are of no use. Hence for example, if there is an earthquake in the area where the manufacturing factory of the company is located then the company will have to make a plan quickly so that operations at the factory are not impacted and once the initial panic of the earthquake is over then the company will not use this plan as earthquakes do not come daily.
Short Duration Plans
Single use plans are short-duration plans in the sense that the company does not intend to use these plans for a long period of time as opposed to standing plans which are long-term in nature. In simple words suppose you do daily exercise in the morning for 2 hours but when you are on a vacation for 7 days then you skip the 2 hours of exercise and do some yoga for half an hour than this act of doing yoga for 7 days is a short duration single use plan as this plan will automatically get changed once you come back from the vacation, the same thing applies to the company where plans are single use plans are made for anywhere ranging between 1 day to 1 or 2 weeks.
Flexibility
Single use plans are flexible in the sense that these plans have to be changed or made according to dynamic situations arising in the company. In simple words, unlike standing plans which follow a fixed pattern, single-use plans do not follow any fixed pattern and hence they have to be flexible as the situations or specific purpose keeps changing and never remains the same.
Middle and Lower Management Involvement
Standing plans are usually made by top-level management as they are made keeping in view the overall objective and mission of the company while single use plans are made keeping in view the specific purpose or problem and hence they are usually made by middle and lower-level management as they are close to the problems related to their field of the work and top management cannot keep an eye on day to day operations of the company as they have many other important matters at their hands.
Limited Scope
Another important characteristic of single use plan is that they have limited scope in the sense that these plans are made for one department or specific situation and other departments of the company are not concerned about the single use plan, unlike standing plans which are usually applicable for the whole company. Hence for example if there is a new launch of the product and the marketing team has made a unique plan for its publicity then this plan will not have any impact on the working of the finance department or production department and its impact will be limited to the marketing department only.
As one can see from the above that single-use plans have unique characteristics and any company will have to use or make single-use at some point of time which is the reason why any top-level manager cannot afford to miss the utility of single-use plans while managing the operations aspect of the company.