Delivery performance improvement by controlled work-order release and work-center load balancing

The concept of load-based work-order release has been studied by many researchers. The general finding is that controlled work-order release in combination with a first come first served release rule (earliest release date) leads to a poorer delivery performance as compared to immediate release. The main reason for this is that this type of release policy leads to unnecessary resource idle times. In this research we investigate a more sophisticated form of controlled work-order release. As reference point, we use an immediate release situation with Poisson order arrival times and a general order lead time equal to the average work-order flow time under immediate release. In particular, we investigate release rules which give priority to orders that require resources which currently are underloaded and delay orders which require resources that are overloaded. The research shows that this type of release policy can lead to a better delivery performance than immediate release.