La falta de homogeneidad del producto (FHP) en las empresas cerámicas y su impacto en la reasignación del inventario

Abstract

The allocation of the product available-to-promise (ATP) in make-to-stock (MTS) contexts is of the utmost importance as it can influence customer satisfaction and profits of the company. However, a proper initial allocation may become inadequate for several reasons. In these case, it is necessary the reallocation of inventory, which will be more complex the more ambitious goals to achieve with it and increased the amount of information to use. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the lack of homogeneity in the product (LHP), present in different industrial sectors, causes the atomization of the inventory and increases the complexity of the reallocation, difficult to obtain optimal solutions. This paper describes the problems of the LHP, first under a generic perspective and then, particularized to MTS ceramic companies. Subsequently, situations in which a specific allocation of ATP can no longer be appropriate in this context are identified and the reassignment, as a way to search for new valid assignments, is proposed. Finally, through a case study of a ceramic company, the impact of the LHP in each of the situations identified is analyzed, noting that the LHP causes some of these situations and in all of them, complicates the reallocation of inventory to orders.