PERIODIC PRODUCTION SCHEDULING AT A FASTENER MANUFACTURER

This paper presents the application of periodic production scheduling at a metal-fastener manufacturing company. The problem was initially p resented as a mandate to reduce finished goods inventory by 33%. Preli minary investigations, however, revealed that any effort to reduce fin ished goods inventory necessarily involved two major endeavors: (1) si gnificant improvements to forecasting and (2) a periodic production sc heduling system (PPS). The forecasting system provided the input to th e PPS system. The PPS required initial procedures for sorting parts in to families, which, as far as possible, shared the same setup patterns , engineering specifications, raw material requirements, etc. The PPS itself was developed on a spreadsheet, and the output from this packag e fed into an interactive PC package. In addition to graphic presentat ion of production scheduling, the PC software package also provided ma npower implications of specific PPS plans for tooling and supervision during runs, on the basis of the periodic schedule. The paper conclude s with lessons learned from attempts to finalize implementation.