Make to stock or make to order: The decoupling point in the food processing industries

Article Abstract:

Food processing industries experience growing logistical demands, growing variety in products and intense competition. As a reaction companies try to produce more on order. Often managers find it difficult to decide which products to make to order and which products to stock. This paper develops a frame that is an aid for managers in balancing the factors and characteristics of market and production process that influence such decisions. The frame is based on the general decoupling point concept by Hoekstra and Romme, which is adapted to the specific characteristics of the food processing industry. Its usefulness is illustrated in a case study. Some directions for further research are given. Keywords: Decoupling point; Market response; Make-to-order; Food processing

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Common due date assignment for scheduling on a single machine with jointly reducible processing times

Article Abstract:

This paper focuses on analyzing the problem of assigning a common due date to a set of jobs and scheduling them on a single machine. The processing times of the jobs are assumed to be controllable but contrary to former approaches we consider a situation in which it is only possible to reduce all processing times by the same proportional amount. This situation, which is quite interesting from a practical point of view, has to the best of our knowledge never been under study before. Besides the assignment of the common due date we concentrate on two goals, namely minimizing the sum of earliness and tardiness penalties and minimizing the number of late jobs. Keywords: Scheduling; Earliness; Tardiness; Controllable processing times

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