Lot Splitting in Stochastic Flow Shop and Job Shop Environments

In recent years many firms have been implementing small lot size production. Lot splitting breaks large orders into smaller transfer lots and offers the ability to move parts more quickly through the production process. This paper extends the deterministic studies by investigating various lot splitting policies in both stochastic job shop and stochastic flow shop settings using performance measures of mean flow time and the standard deviation of flow time. Using a computer simulation experiment, we found that in stochastic dynamic job shops, the number of lot splits is more important than the exact fonn of splitting. However, when optimal job sizes are determined for each scenario, we found a few circumstances where the implementation of a small initial split, called a "flag," can provide measurable improvement in flow time performance. Interestingly, the vast majority of previous research indicates that methods other than equal lot splitting typically improves makespan performance. The earlier research, however, has been set in the static, deterministic flow shop environment. Thus, our results are of practical interest since they show that the specific method of lot splitting is important in only a small set of realistic environments while the choice of an appropriate number of splits is typically more important

International entrepreneurship in SMEs: a study of influencing factors in the textile industry

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11365-012-0242-3International entrepreneurship is an incipient research area with a rapidly increasing body of knowledge and contributions. An important part of this literature has focused on the analysis of the contributing factors to IE development. From these studies, this work attempts to analyse and validate through an integrative model the effect on this construct in SME of some of the main factors proposed by the literature such as Skills and Competences, Attitude and Proactiveness, Creativity and Innovation, Networking, Employees and Activity. To proceed with this aim, we conducted an empirical research focused on 174 textile SME in Spain. The results obtained confirm a positive relationship between the studied factors and the IE development. In consequence, this work agrees with previous literature that point out the need to use multi-theoretical perspectives, combining multiple factors.Gil Pechuán, I.; Expósito Langa, M.; Tomas Miquel, JV. (2013). International entrepreneurship in SMEs: a study of influencing factors in the textile industry. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. 9(1):45-57. doi:10.1007/s11365-012-0242-3S455791Akgün, A., Keskin, H., & Byrne, J. (2012). Organizational emotional memory. Management Decision, 50(1), 95–114.Andersén, J. (2011). Strategic resources and firm performance. Management Decision, 49(1), 87–98.Anderson, A. R., Dodd, S. D., & Jack, S. L. (2012). Entrepreneurship as connecting: some implications for theorising and practice. Management Decision, 50(5), 958–971.Appelbaum, S. H., Roy, M., & Gilliland, T. (2011). Globalization of performance appraisals: theory and applications. Management Decision, 49(4), 570–585.Arribas, I., Hernández, P., Urbano, A., & Vila, J. E. (2012). 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Lot splitting in stochastic flow shop and job shop environments

Includes bibliographic references (p. 21-35)

Volume and Capacity Interaction in Facility Design

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/07408179408966617This paper addresses the joint facilities design problem of determining both demand and capacity with stochastic demand arrivals and stochastic processing throughput. Using a simple M/M/1 queueing model of a profit maximizing firm, we link marketing and production decision variables by recognizing appropriate congestion costs, and show that coordinated decision-making provides results superior to making demand and capacity decisions sequentially. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the model is robust with respect to its assumptions and parameters. An example illustrates the approach and demonstrates the application of the model

A Comparison of Strategies to Dampen Nervousness in MRP Systems

This research examines the effectiveness of alternative strategies for dealing with the problem of order instability, or nervousness, which occurs in Material Requirements Planning systems. Nervousness can be particularly disruptive in multi-level production processes where a change in order size or timing at one level can result in changes at other levels. This study proposes and evaluates five different strategies for treating nervousness caused by the interaction of lot-sizing decisions and the planning horizon. Not evaluated here are the effects on order instability caused by demand uncertainty or supply and lead-time uncertainty. The five strategies examined are: (1) Freezing the schedule within the planning horizon, (2) Lot-for-Lot after stage 1, (3) Safety stocks, (4) Forecast beyond the planning horizon, and (5) Change cost procedure. A series of simulation experiments was conducted to test the effectiveness of the five strategies on schedule stability and system costs. The experiments were constructed to evaluate the impacts of various lot-sizing methods, the length of the planning horizon, setup and holding cost parameters and product assembly structure. The results indicate that when the source of nervousness is due to changes in decisions caused by a rolling planning horizon, safety stock and lot-for-lot approaches are not cost effective. Under most conditions, the strategies of incorporating a change cost to discourage schedule changes or freezing the schedule within the planning horizon appear to be dominant.inventory/production: operating characteristics, inventory/production: simulation, inventory/production: planning horizons