Aggregate Planning Strategies
In general, a corporation attempts to use a mixture
of the three costs to best meet demand. Therefore, the elemental trade-offs
available to a planner is as follows:
·
Capacity (regular time, overtime,
subcontracted)
·
Inventory
·
Backlog/lost sales because of delay
An aggregate plan that increases one of these costs
typically results in a reduction of the other two. In this sense, the prices
represent a trade-off: To lower inventory costs, a planner must increase the capacity
cost or delay delivery to the customer. Thus, the planner trades inventory costs
for capacity or backlog cost.
The three strategies are as follows:
1. Level
strategy (using inventory as the lever)
2. Chase
strategy using (capacity as the lever)
3. Flexibility
strategy (using utilization as the lever)
Level strategy
This is also referred to as a production-smoothing
plan or a stable plan. It focuses on maintaining consistent production and
human resources during a company. The expected demand rate is achieved by
varying the associated factors like finance and human resources. Though this
strategy helps in maintaining human resources, it also leads to stocking
inventory. There also are chances of not meeting the expected targets, which
could end in backlogs costing tons more to the firm. The level strategy is best
suited to situations where inventory carrying costs aren't high. Learn more
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Chase strategy
Just in time (JIT) may be a manufacturing
methodology designed to decrease wastage by receiving goods only as they're
needed. JIT process was developed in Japan to form the simplest use of limited
resources. It focuses on matching the anticipated demand with rigorous
production. Though this strategy aims to meet the demand, it usually results in
stressed employees, which increases attrition. This strategy is best suited to
situations where the cost of changing the production rate is relatively not
high.
Flexibilitystrategy
This strategy could also be used if there's excess
machine capacity (i.e., if machines aren't used 24 hours each day, seven days a
week) and therefore the workforce shows scheduling flexibility. In this case,
the workforce (capacity) is kept stable, but the amount of hours worked is
varied overtime in an attempt to synchronize production with demand. A planner
can use varying amounts of overtime or a versatile schedule to realize this
synchronization. Although this strategy does require that the workforce be
flexible, it avoids a number of the issues related to the chase strategy, most
notably, changing the dimensions of the workforce. This strategy leads to low
levels of inventory but with lower average machine utilization. It should be
used when inventory carrying costs are relatively high and machine capacity is
comparatively inexpensive.
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