Evaluating Production Planning and Control Systems in Different Environments: A Comparative Simulation Study

TL;DR

This study compares the performance of different production planning and control systems across various production environments using extensive simulation, revealing that MRP and ConWIP generally outperform RPS and that performance varies with environment.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive simulation-based comparison of PPCS performance and optimal parameters across diverse production environments, highlighting environment-specific effectiveness.

Findings

MRP and ConWIP outperform RPS in all environments

Performance of MRP vs. ConWIP depends on environment

Parameterization significantly affects system performance

Abstract

Selecting the appropriate production planning and control systems (PPCS) presents a significant challenge for many companies, as their performance, i.e., overall costs, depends on the production system environment. Key environmental characteristics include the system's structure, i.e., flow shop, hybrid shop, or job shop, and the planned shop load. Besides selecting a suitable PPCS, its parameterization significantly influences the performance. This publication investigates the performance and the optimal parametrization of Material Requirement Planning (MRP), Reorder Point System (RPS), and Constant Work In Progress (ConWIP) at different stochastic multi-item multi-stage production system environments by conducting a comprehensive full factorial simulation study. The results indicate that MRP and ConWIP generally outperform RPS in all observed environments. Moreover, when comparing MRP with ConWIP, the performance clearly varies depending on the specific production system environment.