Decision-Making Process for Buffer Dimensioning in Manufacturing

Abstract

Systematic and stochastic variations, both endogenous and exogenous to companies, are a constant challenge for decision makers struggling to maintain a competitive advantage for the business. In response the decision maker introduces buffers to absorb variations but this does not target the source of the problem. The first step should instead be to focus on how to reduce variations and then to handle the remnant variations. In summary the first step should be to perform variation management and then as the second step buffer management should be applied. The combination of these two subprocesses represent service performance management and within this context is buffer dimensioning a key challenge. Input data, decision maker and process logic are identified as three key aspects of buffer dimensioning which are integrated and resulting in six scenarios. These scenarios unravel different conditions for performing buffer dimensioning and facilitate an awareness of a match or mismatch between current and desired situation.