Visual charts produced by simulation to correlate service rate, resource utilization and DDMRP parameters

Abstract : Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP) is a recent method mixing push and pull flow management. Although it claims to be the solution to traditional methods’ limitations, the DDMRP method works at infinite capacity: manufacturing or supply orders are launched according to a logic of replenishment of stocks defined as buffers. This article proposes an evaluation of capacity management using visual charts developed by simulation. These charts correlate the bottleneck resource's loading rate to a service rate by considering one of the DDMRP method parameters, the Decoupled Lead Time (DLT). The charts are a decision support tool. They allow identifying to which loading rate the DLTs are representative of the flow times of manufacturing orders and which capacity level to use. We study different workshops, including a real industrial case. Our results show that it is better to control the flow times by adjusting capacity rather than adjust the DLT parameter.