PRODUCT STRUCTURE COMPLEXITY AND MULTILEVEL LOT SIZING USING ALTERNATIVE COSTING POLICIES*

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis research evaluates the effect of product structure complexity on the performance of several lot‐sizing procedures in a multilevel manufacturing environment. The experiment compares two different costing policies, full value added (FVA) and marginal value added (MVA), for calculating inventory holding cost. The major finding of the research is that product structure complexity has very little effect on the performance of various lot‐sizing procedures. A second finding is that when product structures with varying components per parent and stocking points for a particular end item are present, the MVA costing policy emerges as the policy of choice because it favors slightly the Silver‐Meal (SM)/least‐total‐cost (LTC) procedures over the Wagner‐Whitin (WW)/LTC procedures.