Accepted author manuscript, 1.53 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Workload control in dual resource constrained high-variety shops
T2 - an assessment by simulation
AU - Thurer, Matthias
AU - Stevenson, Mark
AU - Renna, Paolo
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - Workload Control (WLC) seeks to align capacity with demand, where capacity is typically assumed to be restricted by a single constraint – machine capacity. In practice however, shops are often restricted by dual resource constraints: labor and machines. This study therefore uses simulation to investigate the performance of WLC in Dual Resource Constrained (DRC) highvarietyshops with fully interchangeable labor. By considering several environmental factors and different labor assignment and dispatching rules, it is demonstrated that the order release function of WLC maintains its positive impact on performance in a DRC shop under different staffing levels. The positive effect of considering labor availability at release, as proposed in previous research, could not however be confirmed. Thus, the original release method can be applied iflabor is fully interchangeable. In terms of labor assignment, we show that a distinct assignment pattern that differs between upstream and downstream stations improves performance if the routing is directed. Meanwhile, dispatching plays a less important role but creates important interaction effects with the assignment rule. Finally, the results suggest that increasing the servicerate is a better response to the reduction in capacity that results from labor absenteeism than lowering the input frequency of work
AB - Workload Control (WLC) seeks to align capacity with demand, where capacity is typically assumed to be restricted by a single constraint – machine capacity. In practice however, shops are often restricted by dual resource constraints: labor and machines. This study therefore uses simulation to investigate the performance of WLC in Dual Resource Constrained (DRC) highvarietyshops with fully interchangeable labor. By considering several environmental factors and different labor assignment and dispatching rules, it is demonstrated that the order release function of WLC maintains its positive impact on performance in a DRC shop under different staffing levels. The positive effect of considering labor availability at release, as proposed in previous research, could not however be confirmed. Thus, the original release method can be applied iflabor is fully interchangeable. In terms of labor assignment, we show that a distinct assignment pattern that differs between upstream and downstream stations improves performance if the routing is directed. Meanwhile, dispatching plays a less important role but creates important interaction effects with the assignment rule. Finally, the results suggest that increasing the servicerate is a better response to the reduction in capacity that results from labor absenteeism than lowering the input frequency of work
U2 - 10.1080/00207543.2018.1497313
DO - 10.1080/00207543.2018.1497313
M3 - Journal article
VL - 57
SP - 931
EP - 947
JO - International Journal of Production Research
JF - International Journal of Production Research
SN - 0020-7543
IS - 3
ER -