Practical order release planning linking enterprise and shop floor tracking systems for High-Mix Low-Volume (HMLV) manufacturing

Untimely or uncontrolled release of work orders into production creates variance in production and in turn leads to high work-in-process and increased average throughput time, high conversion rate and unbalanced production line. In the HMLV manufacturing environment (e.g. Precision Engineering industry), the massive product mix, low production quantity, and the multitude of production constraints make it virtually impossible for human beings to manually optimise the correct product mix to be released to the production. In this paper, a work order release system was implemented to bridge the gap between the enterprise planning and shop floor execution. It facilitates the management of the sales order by generating and releasing the work orders into shop floor, considering the finite capacity constraints. It also communicates with the shop floor tracking system during execution of the work orders. Working together, these two systems facilitate the management of unplanned stochastic and dynamic events.