A project-based production planning and control system : a case study

Abstract

Develops a project-based production planning and control system for a case study. The case is the operations of a distribution transformer manufacture in Thailand. Transformers are made to order, usually in reasonable quantities. Therefore, an order could be treated as a project. The production of a project is broken-down into a number of batches to suit the nature of some operations. In the planning process, operations milestones of each batch are linked together with the ladder technique and their dependency relationships are drawn with Precedence Diagraming Method (PDM). Material requirements are planned to meet the schedules of operations. The heuristic approaches are employed to resolve resource constraints. Eventually, the network planning model is converted to daily production schedules for individual production centres. Project monitoring and control are carried out on a daily basis. The Line of Balance (LOB) technique is modified to monitor and control progress against the established plan of each production centre in term of Equivalent Unit (EU). Project monitoring indicators are created to measure the performance of the project as a whole. The system developed in this study is based on the concept of Project Management Information System (PMIS) to facilitate computational procedure and to keep baseline databases. It runs on a personal computer. A part of planning system is developed with the Microsoft Project software. Other parts of the system, which include Material Requirement Schedule (MRS), Production Schedule (PS) and Project Monitoring and Control (PMC), are developed with Microsoft Excel.