Optimising Workload Norms: The Influence of Shop Floor Characteristics on Setting Workload Norms for the Workload Control Concept

Matthias Thürer (1) , Cristovao Silva (2) , M Stevenson (3)

1 IWF - Institut für Werkzeugmaschinen und Fabrikbetrieb
2 Mechanical Engineering Department
3 LUMS - Department of Management Science [Lancaster]

Workload Control (WLC) is a leading production planning and control solution for small-and-medium-sized-enterprises (SMEs) and Make-To-Order (MTO) companies. But when implementing WLC, practitioners struggle to determine suitable workload norms to obtain optimum performance. Theory provides some solutions (e.g. using linear programming) but these require regular feedback information on work-in-process, and are therefore often impractical. This paper seeks to predict workload norms without such feedback requirements by analysing the influence of flow characteristics (from a Pure Job Shop to a General Flow Shop) and the number of work centres in the routing of a job on the workload norm. Using simulation and optimisation software, the optimal workload norm is determined for each work centre for two aggregate load-oriented WLC approaches: the classical and corrected load methods. Results suggest the performance of the former is heavily affected by shop floor characteristics but no direct relationship between the characteristics and optimal norm exists. Results suggest the performance of the latter is not influenced by shop floor characteristics and the optimal workload norm is the same for all experiments. The corrected load approach is considered a better and more robust option for implementation; action research should be conducted to apply the findings in practice.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Matthias Thürer, Cristovao Silva, M Stevenson. Optimising Workload Norms: The Influence of Shop Floor Characteristics on Setting Workload Norms for the Workload Control Concept. International Journal of Production Research, 2010, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00207541003604836⟩. ⟨hal-00578717⟩