Order review and release methods in internal logistics of a MTO company

Abstract

Due to change in customer requirements, companies, especially MTO companies, started focusing on the internal flow. Therefore the study of different production planning techniques, particularly order review and release methods, in a pure flow shop is slowly becoming important. Literature shows that research so far is mostly confined in theoretical studies, but there is scarcely any evidence of applying the order review and release methods in a real time company. Therefore, the internal logistics system of a MTO company in Italy is studied. The system follows a pure flow shop configuration. After collecting the data from the company, the different parameters are determined. Two different order review and release methods, limiting, based on heuristics, and balancing, based on optimization model, are applied and compared with the current condition. The simulation results show better performance of balancing method compared to limiting method for the internal flow of the company.