Title: Simulation-based tool to analyse the effect of order acceptance policy in a make-to-order manufacturing system

Authors: Paolo Renna

Addresses: Department of Environmental Engineering and Physics, University of Basilicata, Via dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy

Abstract: Order acceptance decision is an interface between the customer relationship management and the production planning activities of the manufacturing system. The decision of accept/reject an order is a critical decision in an uncertain market environment. This paper proposes an order acceptance policy in a market with three order profit classes and volume uncertainty. The policy proposed is integrated with production planning activity; the policy is used to take the decision of accept/rejection using the information provided by the production planning model. A simulation environment based on an open source tool JAVA has been developed to test the proposed methodology in several environment conditions. The simulation results show the robustness of the proposed approach and provide the information to set the threshold value of the proposed approach.

Keywords: order acceptance; production planning; make-to-order manufacturing; dynamic environments; discrete event simulation; customer relationship management; CRM; order rejection; critical decisions; uncertain environments; order profit classes; volume uncertainty; open source tools; Java; programming languages; computer programmes; threshold values; market environments; services management; operations management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2012.044800

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2012 Vol.11 No.1, pp.70 - 86

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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