Development of a pull production control method for ETO companies and simulation for the metallurgical industry

Abstract

At the moment, many engineer-to-order manufacturers are under pressure, the overcapacity in many sectors erodes prices and many companies, especially in Europe have gone into recent years in bankruptcy. Due to the increasing competition as well as the new customer requirements, the internal processes of an ETO company play an essential role in order to achieve a unique selling proposition (USP). Therefore this paper exposes how the production planning and control of an engineer-to-order manufacturer can be designed in order to increase its OTD (order-to-delivery) rate as well as decrease the WIP (work-in-progress) and the production lead times. To prove the optimized planning logic, it was applied in a simulation case study and based on the results; the conclusions about its potential are derived.