Article ID: | iaor20021245 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 32 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 49 |
End Page Number: | 57 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2000 |
Journal: | IIE Transactions |
Authors: | Lowe T.J., Chhajed D. |
Keywords: | production |
One of the dilemmas that manufacturers face involves the tradeoff between the cost of maintaining a variety of production processes, and the cost of not having the ideal process for every product that they produce. This issue is continuing to become more of a problem as manufacturers are forced by market conditions to offer a wider selection of products. We study an instance of this problem in the manufacture of sheet metal parts. We model the problem of selecting and/or designing tools to punch holes in these parts. The cost of not having an ‘ideal process’ is the cost of not having a tool that precisely matches a hole's design diameter. We consider both general ‘process deviation’ costs as well as the Taguchi loss function. Solution procedures are provided for several versions of the problem.