A quantitative comparison of production and inventory control concepts

In a previous paper a framework for the comparison of production and inventory control concepts has been developed. In this paper, the framework will be elaborated for the experimental comparison of control concepts by means of computer simulations. Attention will be focused on three control concepts: reorder point, base stock control, and manufacturing resource planning with safety stocks. The performance of these control concepts is compared as a function of the product situation (products, processes, and market). The percentage of customer orders delivered in time and the total average stock are chosen as performance indicators. An important aspect of the comparison is the optimization of control parameters (e.g. stock norms) for each specific combination of control concept and production situation. For each investigated production situation, the difference between control concepts is quantified. The simulation results show remarkable differences in performance between control concepts. These differences strongly depend on the production situation and on the selected values for the control parameters. In this paper, some of these differences will be discussed and explained.