AN EVALUATION OF HEURISTICS FOR ALLOCATING COMPONENTS TO KITS IN SMALL-LOT, MULTIECHELON ASSEMBLY SYSTEMS

The kitting problem in multi-echelon assembly systems is to allocate o n-hand stock and anticipated future deliveries to kits to minimize tot al cost, consisting of job earliness, job tardiness, and in-process ho lding costs. This paper describes the kitting problem and compares the performance of three heuristics, two that are commonly used in indust ry and a new one, to resolve it. Computational experience demonstrates that the new heuristic outperforms the others, finding the optimal so lution in 16 of 24 test problems and averaging just 0-6% above the opt imum for the 24 problems. It is expected that the new heuristic will f ind application in large-scale problems encountered in industry. Solut ions will facilitate time-managed flow control, prescribing kitting de cisions that promote cost-effective performance to schedule.