Six examples of planning in a factory

Abstract

Although our explanation of factory planning in theory can now be made more realistic than hitherto by introducing such activities as invoicing and so forth, we had best continue to think in terms of a simple planning situation for reasons which will soon be apparent. Suppose that:

• Supplier and customer maintain the same throughput-time, namely 40 hours.

• Individual job times vary so little about an eight-hour average that any five jobs selected at random are bound to constitute 40 hours of work.

• The capacity allocator is expert enough to get exactly 40 hours of work at a time out of each machine.

• Nothing unforeseen occurs.