Manufacturing capacity planning and control

Abstract

Using a textile machinery plant as the case study, this Teaching Company project looks into the causes for some typical problems in capacity management and its related areas, stressing the importance of having a formal and systematic capacity planning and control routine in the Company. Various factors affecting the manufacturing performance in each work centre have to be examined in order to obtain an accurate capacity figure. The theme is the development of a computerized system based on the existing manufacturing set-up and product varieties within the Company. It allows the capacity requirement patterns to be assessed in details against different specified product-mix combinations. An optional sub-system, the rough-cut method also plays a significant role in preliminary capacity analysis, particularly when the availability of time and information dictates. Though, this work lends itself to solving the problems for the sponsoring Company, sufficient flexibility has been built in to enable the system to be implemented in other firms with limited modifications.