Effectiveness of manufacturing rules on driving daily production plans

Production plans are usually driven by manufacturing rules, with the objective of improving the factory's performance metrics. However, due to the dynamic nature of the manufacturing environment, an effective rule in one situation may be very ineffective in another.This study inspects the effectiveness of three manufacturing rules in terms of three important performance metrics. The three manufacturing rules are (1) line balance, (2) on-time delivery, and (3) bottleneck utilization. The three associated performance metrics are (1) effective WIP (work-in-process), (2) on-time delivery, and (3) bottleneck loading. Manufacturing data extracted from a former Motorola wafer fab is used to evaluate the effectiveness of these production plans. Analysis shows when each rule is effective or ineffective based on different factory conditions. Guidelines for manufacturing rule selection are then provided that are responsive to the current situation in a factory.