Enhancements of a Logistic Model to Improve the Time Synchronicity of Convergent Supply Processes

Abstract

The assembly plays a key role in ensuring the competitiveness of industrial enterprises. From a logistics perspective, one of the central challenges with assembly processes is simultaneously and punctually supplying the necessary parts at the date required. In doing so, the goal is to satisfy the customers’ desire for short throughput times and high schedule reliability, thus keeping inventory related costs as low as possible. The content of this article is the transfer of the idea of the supply diagram to the assembly process. With the help of the assembly throughput diagram and Schmidt’s method using finite process elements to create the supply diagram it is possible to build two new diagrams integrating the point of assembly start and the assembly end into consideration. These diagrams are similar to the supply diagram but focus the successive process and provide complete different opportunities of interpretation. Besides the visualisation of order sequence interchanges or capacity flexibility it is possible to evaluate the quantity of disrupted WIP and regular WIP of an assembly process. The use of the two models supports analysing the logistic performance like the schedule reliability and reveals shortcomings in the concerned period.