The Product Family Design Decisions Impact on Shop Floor Performance

Manufacturers throughout the world search forimprovements to increase profitability.This searchis more challenging when demand uncertainty andfluctuations are considered.For betterprofitability, many researchers and practitionersattempts to search shop floor improvements.However,within the last two decades, it has been determinedthat designing product families also providesopportunities for improvements.Overall, while manyapproaches have been proposed to optimize productfamily design for measures of cost and performance,these approaches fail to incorporate manufacturingissues into family design decisions.Postponement isone of the most important of those issues.Thisresearch presents a computer simulation study bywhich the impact of assembly scheduling on theproduct family design outcomes is investigated.Itextends the studies wherein cost and customerwaiting times were estimated throughstochastic.Simulation is selected for itssensitivity to demand randomness and processvariations.This work has implications formanufacturers seeking to increase their revenuewithout extensively increasing their investment inthe shop floor.

Autorentext

Hakan Umut Artar, M.Sc: Studied Industrial Engineering/ Operations Research at Pennsylvania State University.

Klappentext
Manufacturers throughout the world search for improvements to increase profitability.This search is more challenging when demand uncertainty and fluctuations are considered.For better profitability, many researchers and practitioners attempts to search shop floor improvements.However, within the last two decades, it has been determined that designing product families also provides opportunities for improvements.Overall, while many approaches have been proposed to optimize product family design for measures of cost and performance, these approaches fail to incorporate manufacturing issues into family design decisions.Postponement is one of the most important of those issues.This research presents a computer simulation study by which the impact of assembly scheduling on the product family design outcomes is investigated.It extends the studies wherein cost and customer waiting times were estimated through stochastic.Simulation is selected for its sensitivity to demand randomness and process variations.This work has implications for manufacturers seeking to increase their revenue without extensively increasing their investment in the shop floor.