A Framework for Integrated Material and Capacity Based Master Scheduling

Abstract

Master scheduling is gaining recognition as the major planning process for manufacturing firms, where the appropriate trade-offs can be made among e.g. customer service, manufacturing efficiency and inventory investment, involving both market and manufacturing insights. Master scheduling has traditionally been treated as a material-based planning tool, e.g. in the MRP II (manufacturing resource planning) approach to master scheduling. Capacity issues are then treated in a secondary way, as a capacity check of material plans. However, in, for example, process type industries the main focus is rather on capacity. Taking into account the positions of bottlenecks, order penetration points, and material profiles, the integration of material and capacity plans becomes necessary in many manufacturing environments. This paper presents a framework for the structuring of material and capacity integration taking the factors above into consideration. A matrix is presented where three material based characteristics meet four capacity based characteristics, and the resulting twelve situations depict possible manufacturing settings. In this context, issues such as material and capacity integration, planning and scheduling approaches and multilevel master scheduling are discussed.