International Collaboration: Capacity Anticipation and Modeling for Production Planning with Flexible Resources

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This grant provides funding for an international research collaboration on methods of modeling capacity in manufacturing systems with flexible resources. Improved modeling of the capacity of a manufacturing system will enhance the ability of planning systems to make the best use of the manufacturing system's capability and is of considerable theoretical and practical interest. A promising approach to this problem in recent years has been to represent the nonlinear relationship between the work-in-progress (WIP) levels and the throughput using nonlinear clearing functions. This project explores the extension of the clearing function concept into the domain of manufacturing flexibility. The NCSU group has substantial practical and theoretical expertise on production planning and clearing function representations of aggregate capacity and the Boðaziçi University group provides research infrastructure, work force and substantial experience in the field of modeling, simulation and real-time management of manufacturing systems with high degrees of manufacturing flexibility. If successful, the proposed research program will open the way to a novel class of capacity allocation and planning models, but also initiate the development of international awareness and collaboration and initiate a longer-term relationship between the two institutions leading to more extensive faculty and student exchange programs in the future.