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The operating impact of parts commonality
Author(s) -
Vakharia Asoo J.,
Parmenter David A.,
Sanchez Susan M.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.649
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1873-1317
pISSN - 0272-6963
DOI - 10.1016/0272-6963(95)00033-x
Subject(s) - workload , standardization , computer science , work (physics) , order (exchange) , product (mathematics) , operations management , operations research , lead time , business , risk analysis (engineering) , marketing , engineering , mathematics , mechanical engineering , geometry , finance , operating system
This paper investigates the impact of between‐ and within‐product parts commonality on the workload of a manufacturing firm using an MRP system. More specifically, we investigate the impact of several operational factors and their interactions with part commonality. We develop and validate a large simulation of an MRP system and integrate the generation of planned order releases with workload estimation on the shop floor. The results indicate that increasing parts commonality has positive effects in terms of average shop load but does lead to greater variability in terms of loadings as well as increasing system disruption. Further, we also find that the number of work centers significantly impacts the shop floor effects of commonality. Hence, although an increase in parts commonality results in less design effort and increased standardization, the negative effects of increasing commonality often appear on the shop floor level. This points to a need for the effective management of parts commonality by assessing the tradeoff between strategic “benefits” and operational “costs”.