A new perspective on Workload Control by measuring operating performances through an economic valorization

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Manufacturing Systems Engineering
• Production Management

Background:

• Workload Control (WLC) is a production planning system designed to mitigate lead time issues in job-shop environments.
• Despite acknowledged benefits, widespread industry adoption of WLC is hindered by a lack of standardized performance assessment methods.
• Existing performance measures often vary and can be biased towards specific WLC features, potentially misleading practitioners.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the lack of a consistent performance evaluation method for Workload Control (WLC).
• To propose a unified approach for assessing WLC benefits in economic terms, facilitating comparison and decision-making.
• To develop a quantifiable economic measure for evaluating and optimizing WLC operational features.

Main Methods:

• Identification of key costs and incomes associated with WLC implementation and operation.
• Development of an aggregate economic measure integrating various performance indicators.
• Validation of the proposed economic measure through simulation using a standard 6-machine job-shop benchmark.

Main Results:

• The proposed economic measure effectively quantifies the primary benefits of WLC.
• The economic approach allows for the comparison of different WLC configurations and production planning systems.
• Simulation results demonstrate the utility of the economic measure in evaluating and fine-tuning WLC.

Conclusions:

• Quantifying WLC benefits in economic terms provides a robust and comparable assessment method.
• This economic framework can guide practitioners in selecting and optimizing production planning and control systems.
• The proposed approach enhances the practical applicability and acceptance of Workload Control in manufacturing.