The relationship between part type demand and FMS loading policies

In this paper, the resilience of loading policies to changes in part type demand is analysed. Two loading policies are compared: the maximum production rate policy and the minimum cost policy. The loading policies’ resilience is measured by the operational flexibility that is imparted to the FMS by the policy when the FMS is faced with changes in the part type demand distributions. Results show that changes in part type demand do not statistically affect the resulting FMS makespan. However, as demand increases, the minimum cost policy imparts more routeing flexibility to the FMS than the maximum production rate policy. Likewise, as the demand decreases, the minimum cost policy results in a larger capacity flexibility measure than the maximum production rate policy. In summary, the minimum cost policy, while lowering inventory by as much as 48%, is found to increase system routeing flexibility by as much as 17% and capacity flexibility by 7% without statistically affecting planned makespan.