Evaluating capacity management tactics for a legacy manufacturing plant

Abstract

Robust capacity improvement tactics, namely acquisition of assets and enhanced flexibility in product manufacturing, that alleviate mismatches between required and available capacity are revealed by data analytics. Improvement brought about by these tactics as measured by two performance metrics, production makespan and product availability, is assessed using optimization methodology. This paper demonstrates the value of analysing demand and product specification data to inform capacity re-calibration in an S&P 500 company in the chemical industry. The tactic recommended for implementation, which yielded up to a doubling of the capacity, emerged from an empirical analysis of data for five prototypical planning periods.