Delivery optimization for a make to order custom wire mill

In the face of growing competition in the Tantalum business, H.C.Starck's management is minimizing the delivery time for custom-made capacitor-grade tantalum wire products. H.C. Starck, Inc., Newton, Massachusetts faces challenges in its production environment to meet customer demand in an effective manner. Specific challenges include poor forecasting abilities, variation in customer demand, long component lead time, and expensive components. For this study, the desired delivery time reduction is to be achieved by establishing intermediate inventory buffers, setting appropriate inventory targets in an order-up-to-level inventory management model that considers sources of variation, time requirements, and customer service goals. We addressed a number of goals. First, we tied demand variability into traditional demand- focused models. Second, we develop more standardized and simplified inventory targets. Finally, we develop a production scheduling system that smoothes production, simplifies the scheduling process, and helps in achieving desired customer service level and the inventory targets.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Slivinskiy, Andrey L

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Donald Rosenfield and Thomas W. Eagar.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Materials Science and Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34865

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34865