I believe that what you are describing is a relatively frequent
problem for many companies.
The 'current thinking' approach is to look at the flow of items, from
raw materials to customer use (or beyond), and LEAN out the
production stream.
"LEAN" manufacturing is the procedure/philosophy/whatever that looks
at how all the pieces of production are brought together and
converted to product in the customer's hands. It is related
originally to the Toyota Production System. For example, there is
something called the 'takt' time, the time permitted for each
operation step, such that all the customers get what they want, and
no more is produced, each day. For example, if you sell 1000 units
per day, and your workers are on deck for 7 hours (= 7*60*60 = 25,200
seconds) per day, then each production step must produce one part in
25.2 seconds. At this rate, you can have virtually no work in
progress, and you will turn out 1000 units each day.
Clearly, real life is not that simple, but from this kind of
calculation you can work out each process step for maximum customer
satisfaction and minimum production waste.
the distribution network for a product is rightfully part of the
total picture, and part of LEANing out the firm.
Learn the details and overview by googling for "Jim Womack" and Lean
Institute.
As a local (Southeast Wisconsin, USA) matter, next week Thursday a
local company is going to give some of us a tour of their engine
assembly operation, which is now almost fully LEANed out. Anyone in
the area who wants to attend, please email me, with your company
affiliation, by Monday off-line.
Oh, and 'inventory management' is a part of LEAN methods.
Cheers & good luck,
Jay
On Dec 2, 2005, at 1:55 AM, Indrajit Sengupta wrote:
> Dear All,
> I have a question relating to what approach to take
> for the following problem.
>
> Suppose a company is making a product which itself
> might include around upto 30 or so subproducts
> depending on what the customer wants. The company is
> also responsible for making the subproducts. Now the
> company faces the issue in delivering the finished
> product in time as it also has to manufacture the
> subproducts. Now if the company seeing competition
> decides to decrease the delivery time by storing the
> right subproducts which will have higher demand in
> their store, then how should it go about in analyzing
> it and what kind of data might be required for the
> analysis.
>
> Any insight would be very helpful. I think the company
> needs to do some inventory management. But to do that
> it needs to have an idea of the demand curve for each
> of the subproducts. Is there any other approach that
> can be followed here. I have heard that neural
> networks are applied sometimes but have no idea of how
> to implement it.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Indrajit Sen Gupta
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________
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>
Jay Warner
Principal Scientist
Warner Consulting, Inc.
4444 North Green Bay Road
Racine, WI 53404-1216
USA
Ph: 262.634.9100
FAX: 262.681.1133
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web: www.a2q.com
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