A common control model used to implement computer integrated manufacturing(CIM) is based on the hierarchical decomposition of the shop floor activities, in which supervisory controllers are responsible for all the interactions among subordinates. Although the hierarchical control philosophy provides for easy understanding of complex systems, an emerging manufacturing paradigm, agile manufacturing, requires a new control structure necessary to accommodate the rapid development of a shop floor controller. This is what is called autonomous agent-based heterarchical control. As computing resources and communication network on the shop floor become increasingly intelligent and powerful, the new control architecture is about to come true in a modern CIM system. In this paper, heterarchical control is adopted and investigated, in which a controller for a unit of device performs three main functions - planning, scheduling and execution. Attention is paid to the planning function and all the detailed planning activities for heterarchical shop floor control are identified. Interactions with other functions are also addressed. In general, planning determines tasks to be scheduled in the future. In other words, planning analyzes process plans and transforms process plans into detailed plans adequate for shop floor control. Planning is also responsible for updating a process plan and identifying/resolving replanning activities whether they come from scheduling or execution.