PRODUCT STRUCTURE COMPLEXITY AND INVENTORY STORAGE CAPACITY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A MULTILEVEL MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

In today's competitive environment firms are placing greater emphasis on competitive priorities such as low cost and better customer service levels as measured by on-time deliveries. In a multi-level manufactur ing system there are various factors which influence costs and service levels (material quality, master scheduling methods, product structur e design, batch size, and inventory storage capacity, etc.). In this s tudy, the effect of varying product structures, and choice of lot-sizi ng procedures is examined in inventory storage capacitated environment s using cost and service level as performance evaluation criteria. The results show that choice of lot sizing rules and of the level of inve ntory storage capacity is influenced by product structure complexity. Finally, specific recommendations are given for various manufacturing environments.