On the determination of overplanning margins for components in a consumer electronics factory

Overplanning means planning of more products than forecasted in order to handle uncertainty in customer demand. At master scheduling level it may be a way to improve the cooperation between the commercial department and the production department. In this paper, overplanning margins at master scheduling level are determined by the commercial department. On request of the production department of a consumer electronics factory, several alternatives are developed to convert these margins into overplanning margins for the preceding component level. These alternatives are investigated on their logistic performance by means of simulation. Two of these are recommended and investigated in more detail with respect to future objectives of the factory.