Production Planning

Production Planning

Introduction

The intention of this project is to demonstrate the function of production planning in a non - artificial environment. Through this simulation we are able to forecast, with a degree of certainty the monthly requirements for end products, subassemblies, parts and raw materials. We are supplied with information that we are to base our decisions on. The manufacturer depicted in this simulation was actually a General Electric facility that produced black and white television sets Syracuse, New York. Unfortunately this plant is no longer operational, it was closed down and the equipment was shipped off to China. One can only wonder if the plant manager would have taken Professor Moily's class in production management the plant still might be running.

Modern production management or operation management (OM) systems first came to prominence in the early half of the twentieth century. Frederick W.

Taylor is considered the father of operations management and is credited in the development of the following principles.

a. Scientific laws govern how much a worker can produce in a day. b. It is the function of management to discover and use these laws in operation of productive systems. c. It is the function of the worker to carry out management's wishes without question.

Many of today's method's of operation management have elements of the above stated principles. For example, part of Material Requirement Planning system (MRP) is learning how workers to hire, fire, or lay idle. This is because it we realize the a worker can only produce so many widgets a day, can work so many hours a day, and so many days a year.

I will disagree with principle “c” in that the worker should blindly carry out the wishes of management. Successful operations are based upon a two- way flow of thought and suggestions from management to labor. This two-way flow of ideas is incorporated into another modern system of operations management, the Just - In - Time system. Eastman Kodak gives monetary rewards to employees who devises an improvement in a current process or suggests an entirely new process of manufacturing. Often a small suggestion can yield a big reward when applied to a mass-produced item.

Body

In this project we are presented with the following information: bounds for pricing decisions, market share determination, the product explosion matrix, sales history (units per month at average price), unit value, setup man-hours, running man hours, initial workforce, value of inventory, on hand units. We also know that we have eight end products, four subassemblies, eight parts, and four raw materials. The eight end products are comprised entirely from the