D 0854

Supply Chain : Manufacturing and Warehousing

Session 09 Production Planning and Control Aggregate Planning.

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Bina Nusantara University

Aggregate Planning
Aggregate planning, which might also be called Macro Production Planning, address the problem of deciding :
how many employees the firm should retain, and for a manufacturing firm,

The quantity and the mix of products to be produced. Macro production planning is not limited to manufacturing firms. Macro production planning strategies are a fundamental part of the firmss overall business strategy.
Bina Nusantara University

Source : Production and Operations Analysis 4th Edition, Steven Nahmias McGraw Hill International Edition

Aggregate Planning
The methodology of aggregate planning in this topic requires the assumption that
Demand is deterministic , or known in advance.

This assumption is made to simplify the analysis and allow us to focus on the systematic or predictable changes in the demand pattern, rather than on the unsystematic or random changes. The goal of the analysis is to determine the number of workers that should be employed each period and the number of aggregate units that should be produced each period.
Bina Nusantara University

Source : Production and Operations Analysis 4th Edition, Steven Nahmias McGraw Hill International Edition

Aggregate Planning
The objective is to minimize costs of production, payroll, holding and changing size of the workforce. The cost of making changes are generally referred to as smoothing costs. Most of the aggregate planning models discuss in this topic assume that all costs are linear functions. This means that the cost of hiring an additional worker is the same as the cost of hiring the previous worker, and the cost of holding and additional unit of inventory is the same as the cost of holding the previous unit of inventory.
Source : Production and Operations Analysis 4th Edition, Steven Nahmias McGraw Hill International Edition

Bina Nusantara University

Hierarchy of Production Decisions

Long-range Capacity Planning

Planning Horizon
Aggregate planning: Intermediate-range capacity
planning, usually covering 2 to 12 months.

Long range
Intermediate range

Short range Now

2 months

1 Year

 Should inventories be used to absorb changes in demand during planning period? Should demand changes be accommodated by varying the size of the workforce? Should part-timers be used, or should overtime and/or machine idle time be used to absorb fluctuations? Should subcontractors be used on fluctuating orders so a stable workforce can be maintained? Should prices or other factors be changed to influence demand?

Aggregate Planning Strategies

 Fully load facilities and minimize overloading and underloading Make sure enough capacity available to satisfy expected demand Plan for the orderly and systematic change of production capacity to meet the peaks and valleys of expected customer demand Get the most output for the amount of resources available

Why Aggregate Planning Is Necessary

Aggregation Method Suggested by Hax and Meal They suggest grouping products into three categories:
items, families, and types. Items are the finest level in the product structure and correspond to individual stock-keeping units. For example, a firm selling refrigerators would distinguish white from almond in the same refrigerator as different items. A family in this context would be refrigerators in general. Types are natural groupings of families; kitchen appliances might be one type.

Steps in Aggregate Planning Prepare the sales forecast (Note that all producting planning
activities begin with sales forecast) Total all the individual product or service forecasts into one aggregate demand (if not homogeneous use labor-hours, machinehours or sales dollars) Transform the aggregate demand into worker, material and machine requirements Develop alternative capacity plans Select a capacity plan which satisfies aggregate demand and best meets the objectives of the organization.

Suppose that D1, D2, . . . , DT are the forecasts of demand for aggregate units over the planning horizon (T periods.) The problem is to determine both work force levels (Wt) and production levels (Pt ) to minimize total costs over the T period planning horizon.

Overview of the Problem

Important Issues in Aggregate Planning

Smoothing. Refers to the costs and disruptions that result from making changes in production and workforce levels from one period to the next (cost of hiring and firing workers). Bottleneck Planning. Problem of not meeting the peak demand because of capacity restrictions. A bottleneck occurs when the capacity of the productive system is insufficient to meet a sudden surge in the demand. Bottlenecks can also occur in a particular part of the productive system due to the breakdown of a key piece of equipment or the shortage of a critical resource.

 Planning Horizon. The planning horizon is the number of periods of demand forecast used to generate the aggregate plan. If the horizon is too short, there may be insufficient time to build inventories to meet future demand surges and if it is too long the reliability of the demand forecasts is likely to be low. (n practice, rolling schedules are used) Treatment of Demand. Assume demand is known. Ignores uncertainty to focus on the predictable/systematic variations in demand, such as seasonality.

Important Issues in Aggregate Planning

Relevant Costs
Smoothing Costs changing size of the work force changing number of units produced Holding Costs primary component: opportunity cost of investment in inventory Shortage Costs Cost of demand exceeding stock on hand.

Other Costs: payroll, overtime, subcontracting.

Fig. 3-2

Cost of Changing the Size of the Workforce

Fig. 3-3

Holding and Back-Order Costs

$ Cost

Slope = Ci

Slope = CP

Back-orders Inventory

Positive inventory

Aggregate Units units. They The method is based on notion of aggregate may be Actual units of production Weight (tons of steel) Volume (gallons of gasoline) Dollars (Value of sales) Fictitious aggregate units(See example 3.1)

Example of fictitious aggregate units. (Example 3.1)

One plant produced 6 models of washing machines: Model # hrs. Price % sales A 5532 4.2 285 32 K 4242 4.9 345 21 L 9898 5.1 395 17 L 3800 5.2 425 14 M 2624 5.4 525 10 M 3880 5.8 725 06

Question: How do we define an aggregate unit here?

 Notice: Price is not necessarily proportional to worker hours (i.e., cost): why? One method for defining an aggregate unit: requires: .32(4.2) + .21(4.9) + . . . + .06(5.8) = 4.8644 worker hours. This approach for this example is reasonable since products produced are similar. When products produced are heterogeneous, a natural aggregate unit is sales dollars.

Example continued

Prototype Aggregate Planning Example (this example is not in the text) The washing machine plant is interested in determining work force and production levels for the next 8 months. Forecasted demands for Jan-Aug. are: 420, 280, 460, 190, 310, 145, 110, 125. Starting inventory at the end of December is 200 and the company would like to have 100 units on hand at the end of August. Find monthly production levels.

Step 1: Determine net demand. (subtract starting inventory from period 1 forecast and add ending inventory to period 8 forecast.)

Month Net Predicted Cum. Net Demand Demand 1(Jan) 220 2(Feb) 280 3(Mar) 460 4(Apr) 190 5(May) 310 6(June) 145 7(July) 110 8(Aug) 225

220 500 960 1150 1460 1605 1715 1940

Step 2. Graph Cumulative Net Demand to Find Plans Graphically

2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Cum Net Dem

Basic Strategies
Constant Workforce (Level Capacity) strategy: Maintaining a steady rate of regular-time output while meeting variations in demand by a combination of options.

Zero Inventory (Matching Demand)strategy:

Matching capacity to demand; the planned output for a period is set at the expected demand for that period.

Constant Workforce Approach

Advantages
Stable output rates and workforce

Disadvantages
Greater inventory costs Increased overtime and idle time Resource utilizations vary over time

Zero Inventory Approach

Advantages
Investment in inventory is low Labor utilization is high

Disadvantages
The cost of adjusting output rates and/or workforce levels

Suppose that we are interested in determining a production plan that doesnt change the size of the workforce over the planning horizon. How would we do that? One method: In previous picture, draw a straight line from origin to 1940 units in month 8: The slope of the line is the number of units to produce each month.

Constant Work Force Plan

Constant Workforce Plan (zero ending inv)

2000 1500 1000 500 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Monthly Production = 1940/8 = 242.2 or rounded to 243/month. But: there are stockouts.

How can we have a constant work force plan with no stockouts?

Answer: using the graph, find the straight line that goes through the origin and lies completely above the cumulative net demand curve:

Constant Work Force Plan With No Stockouts

3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Month Cum. Net. Dem. 1(Jan) 220 2(Feb) 500 3(Mar) 960 4(Apr.) 1150 5(May) 1460 6(June) 1605 7(July) 1715 8(Aug) 1940

From the previous graph, we see that cum. net demand curve is crossed at period 3, so that monthly production is 960/3 = 320. Ending inventory each month is found from:

Cum. Prod.

Invent. 320 100 640 140 960 0 1280 130 1600 140 1920 315 2240 525 2560 620

But - may not be realistic for several reasons: It may not be possible to achieve the production level of 320 unit/mo with an integer number of workers Since all months do not have the same number of workdays, a constant production level may not translate to the same number of workers each month.

To Overcome These Shortcomings:

Assume number of workdays per month is given (reasonable!) Compute a K factor given by:
K = number of aggregate units produced by one worker in one day

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 Suppose that we are told that over a period of 40 days, the plant had 38 workers who produced 520 units. It follows that: K= 520/(38*40) = .3421 = average number of units produced by one worker in one day.

Finding K

Computing Constant Work Force -- Realistically

Assume we are given the following # working days per month: 22, 16, 23, 20, 21, 22, 21, 22.
March is still the critical month.

Cum. net demand thru March = 960. Cum # working days = 22+16+23 = 61. We find that:
960/61 = 15.7377 units/day 15.7377/.3421 = 46 workers required Actually 46.003 here we truncate because we are set to build inventory so the low number should work (check for March stock out) however we must use care and typically round up any fractional worker calculations thus building more inventory

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 Examining the graph we see that that was the Trigger point where our constant production line intersected the cumulative demand line assuring NO STOCKOUTS! Can we prove this is best?

Why again did we pick on March?

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Tabulate Days/Production Per Worker Vs. Demand To Find Minimum Numbers

Month # Work Days #Units/worker Forecast Demand net Min # Workers C. Net Demand C.Units/Worker Min # Workers

Jan

22.00

7.53

220.00

29.23

220.00

7.53

29.23

Feb

16.00

5.47

280.00

51.15

500.00

13.00

38.46

Mar

23.00

7.87

460.00

58.46

960.00

20.87

46.00

Apr

20.00

6.84

190.00

27.77

1150.00

27.71

41.50

May

21.00

7.18

310.00

43.15

1460.00

34.89

41.84

Jun

22.00

7.53

145.00

19.27

1605.00

42.42

37.84

Jul

21.00

7.18

110.00

15.31

1715.00

49.60

34.57

Aug

22.00

7.53

225.00

29.90

1940.00

57.13

33.96

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 Cumulative Demand says March needs most workers but will mean building inventories in Jan + Feb to fulfill the greater March demand If we keep this number of workers we will continue to build inventory through the rest of the plan!

What Should We Look At?

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Constant Work Force Production Plan

Mo Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug # wk days 22 16 23 20 21 22 21 22 Prod. Level 346 252 362 315 330 346 330 346 Cum Prod 346 598 960 1275 1605 1951 2281 2627 Cum Nt End Inv Dem 220 126 500 98 960 0 1150 125 1460 145 1605 346 1715 566 1940 687

Holding Cost (per unit per month): $8.50 Hiring Cost per worker: $800 Firing Cost per worker: $1,250 Payroll Cost: $75/worker/day Shortage Cost: $50 unit short/month

Addition of Costs

Cost Evaluation of end Constant Work Assume that the work force at the of Dec was Force 40. Plan Cost to hire 6 workers: 6*800 = $4800 Inventory Cost: accumulate ending inventory: (126+98+0+. . .+687) = 2093. Add in 100 units netted out in Aug = 2193. Hence Inv. Cost = 2193*8.5=$18,640.50 Payroll cost: ($75/worker/day)(46 workers )(167days) = $576,150 Cost of plan: $576,150 + $18,640.50 + $4800 = $599,590.50

Cost Reduction in Constant Work Force Plan (Mixed Strategy)

In the original cum net demand curve, consider making reductions in the work force one or more times over the planning horizon to decrease inventory investment.

Plan Modified With Lay Offs in March and May

2000 1500 1000 500 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

 Here the idea is to change the workforce each month in order to reduce ending inventory to nearly zero by matching the workforce with monthly demand as closely as possible. This is accomplished by computing the # of units produced by one worker each month (by multiplying K by #days per mo.) and then taking net demand each month and dividing by this quantity. The resulting ratio is rounded up to avoid shortages.

Zero Inventory Plan (Chase Strategy)

An Alternative is called the Chase Plan

Here, we hire and fire (layoff) workers to keep inventory low! We would employ only the number of workers needed each month to meet demand Examining our chart (earlier) we need: Jan: 30; Feb: 51; Mar: 59; Apr: 27; May: 43 Jun: 20; Jul: 15; Aug: 30 Found by: (monthly demand) (monthly pr. /worker)

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 So we hire or Fire (lay-off) monthly Jan (starts with 40 workers): Fire 10 (cost $8000) Feb: Hire 21 (cost $16800) Mar: Hire 8 (cost $6400) Apr: Fire 31 (cost $38750) May: Hire 15 (cost $12000) Jun: Fire 23 (cost $28750) Jul: Fire 5 (cost $6250) Aug: Hire 15 (cost $12000) Total Personnel Costs: $128950

An Alternative is called the Chase Plan

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I got the following for this problem:

# hired 21 8 31 15 24 4 #fired 10

Period 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Inventory cost is essentially 165*8.5 = $1402.50 Employment costs: $428325 Chase Plan Total: $558677.50 Betters the Constant Workforce Plan by: 599590.50 558677.50 = 40913 But will this be good for your image? Can we find a better plan?

An Alternative is called the Chase Plan

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 Disaggregation of aggregate plans mean converting an aggregate plan to a detailed master production schedule for each individual item (remember the hierarchical product structure given earlier: items, families, types). Keep in mind that unless the results of the aggregate plan can be linked to the master production schedule, the aggregate planning methodology could have little value.

Disaggregating The Aggregate Plan

Aggregate Plan to Master Schedule

Aggregate Planning

Disaggregation

Master Schedule

Optimal Solutions to Aggregate Planning Problems Via Linear Programming

Linear Programming provides a means of solving aggregate planning problems optimally. The LP formulation is fairly complex requiring 8T decision variables(1.workforce level, 2. production level, 3. inventory level, 4. # of workers hired, 5. # of workres fired, 6. overtime production, 7. idletime, 8. subcontracting) and 3T constraints (1. workforce, 2. production, 3. inventory), where T is the length of the planning horizon. (See section 3.5, pg.125)

Optimal Solutions to Aggregate Planning Problems Via Linear Programming Clearly, this can be a formidable linear program. The LP formulation shows that the modified plan we considered with two months of layoffs is in fact optimal for the prototype problem. Refer to the latter part of Chapter 3 and the Appendix following the chapter for details.

Exploring the Optimal (L.P.) Approach

We need an Objective Function for cost of the aggregate plan (target is to minimize costs):
T

c
t 1

N H cF N F cI IT cR PR co OT cu UT cS ST

Here the cis are cost for hiring, firing, inventory, production, etc HT and FT are number of workers hired and fired IT, PT, OT, ST AND UT are numbers units inventoried, produced on regular time, on overtime, by sub-contract or the number of units that could be produced on idled worker hours respectively

Exploring the Optimal (L.P.) Approach

This objective Function would be subject to a series of constraints (one of each type for each period) Wt Wt 1 H t Ft Number of Workers Constraints: Inventory Constraints: Production Constraints:

I t I t 1 P t St Dt

P t k nt Wt Ot U t
Where: nt * k is the number of units produced by a worker in a given period of nt days

 Employee Constraints:

Real Constraint Equation (rewritten for L.P.):

Specifically:

Wt Wt 1 H t Ft 0 W1 W0 H1 F1 0

Inventory Constraints:

Pt I t I t 1 St Dt
specifically:

P 1 I1 I 0 S1 D1

Real Constraint Equations (rewritten for L.P.): Production Constraints:

P t k nt Wt Ot U t 0
specifically:

P 1 k n1 W 1 O 1 U1 0

Real Constraint Equations (rewritten for L.P.): Finally, we need constraints defining:
Initial Workforce size Starting Inventory Final Desired Inventory And, of course, the general constraint forcing all variables to be 0