A New Model for Determining Production Capacity

Traian Alexandru Buda, EThis paper introduces a new model for computing the production capacity in a manufacturing system or in a supply chain. Solving the production capacity problem means to be able to answer the following question: how many parts, from each product, can be produced by a given manufacturing system in a given time span considering the product mix and a multi-stage Bill of Materials? The proposed model is able to determine the production capacity and the loading level per resource for a manufacturing system using as inputs the Bill of Materials, Routing file, time span and product mix. The novelty brought by this method consists in the adoption of the matrix calculus in order to manipulate the inputs to obtain the requested outputs. The opportunity of such a model is that it offers the complete view on the capacity problem with a full range of answers: the available and required capacity at resource and finished product level and the loading level for each resource. Also the facile implementation and integration in ERP systems is a vital point. The use of such a model is in the investment process, middle and long-term capacity planning and client order confirmation process. The model aims to solveany type of manufacturing system.