The operating impact of parts commonality
通过MRP系统仿真，研究了零件通用性对制造企业工作负荷的影响，发现通用性虽能降低平均负荷，但会增加负荷波动和系统混乱，尤其受工作中心数量影响。
Abstract This paper investigates the impact of between‐ and within‐product parts commonality on the workload of a manufacturing firm using an MRP system. More specifically, we investigate the impact of several operational factors and their interactions with part commonality. We develop and validate a large simulation of an MRP system and integrate the generation of planned order releases with workload estimation on the shop floor. The results indicate that increasing parts commonality has positive effects in terms of average shop load but does lead to greater variability in terms of loadings as well as increasing system disruption. Further, we also find that the number of work centers significantly impacts the shop floor effects of commonality. Hence, although an increase in parts commonality results in less design effort and increased standardization, the negative effects of increasing commonality often appear on the shop floor level. This points to a need for the effective management of parts commonality by assessing the tradeoff between strategic “benefits” and operational “costs”.