| Abstract: | This paper describes a simulation study of the relative impact of different operating policies on performance of a hypothetical multistage production system that produces assembled products. The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of operating policy rules on system performance. Several performance criteria, including flow time and earliness and tardiness measures, were used to evaluate system performance. Results show that performance of the production system is significantly influenced by the operating policy rules, although the relative impact of the rules is dependent on the performance measure considered. Interactions between and among policy rules were also found to be important in several cases. Overall, the results indicate that much previous research in non-assembly systems can be generalized to assembly systems. Subject Areas: Scheduling, Material Requirements Planning, and Simulation. |
