Models of the transient behaviour of production units to optimize the aggregate material flow

The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it aims at providing a link between order release mechanisms based on the workload control concept on the one hand and models for aggregate order release planning that optimize the aggregate material flow through a production unit on the other hand. We argue that both approaches aim at optimizing the material flow through a production unit, following a rule-based approach or an optimization-based approach, respectively. Secondly, it highlights the limitations of the models of the latter category that are available today and presents a direction for improvement. We argue that aggregate order release planning models should be based on models of the transient behaviour of queueing networks, and we present one way to accomplish this.