Control engineering concepts as a guide to improved production control: A make-for-stock case

Three changes in the rules used to control a manufacturing unit, which were suggested by simple control engineering concepts, have been examined. A model of an actual make-for-stock shop, driven by real order time-series, was used to examine the impact of the rule changes on a production cost function. The charges were tested across a wide range of conditions, and each was found to yield appreciable and statistically significant cost savings. Results are reported for the cases when the changes were made both separately and simultaneously. In the latter case the savings ranged from 25 to 34 per cent.