The effect of workload control on order flow times

Situations where single components are manufactured with a relatively high frequency, where production capacity can be considered as homogeneous and where the manufacturing of a component requires the performance of a relatively large number of successive operations are considered. A model is presented of the dynamic behaviour of the system on an aggregate level. For two control modes, the variance and the steady state deviation of the order flow time from the norm is calculated. Typical differences are revealed between workload control by means of capacity variations and by means of order release variations. It is shown that the flow-time norm is a major determinant of the control effectivenes