Simulation study of availability management in a make-to-order manufacturing environment for a differentiated order system

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of a differentiated order system for a major manufacturing organisation in the context of a ‘make-to-order’ manufacturing environment. This article summarises all aspects of analysis, including creation of a simulation model used in the analysis, replications of various scenarios and the resulting conclusions. Scenarios simulated include variable buffer inventory sizes, variable order sizes, variable delta time periods and variable order rates. Based on these scenarios, the simulation results show that some form of buffer adjustment should be utilised to steer order processing availabilities. Buffer should be adjusted with predetermined ranges when the delta between availabilities of ‘C’ and ‘I’ orders leaves the optimal range.

Keywords:

• differentiated order system
• make-to-order
• simulation
• scheduling