An Assessment of Some Approaches to Hierarchical Production Planning

Some hierarchical approaches for production planning in a batch type manufacturing environment are described. In a single stage production system, three aggregation levels exist: types, families and items. The performance of a hierarchical system model is largely dependent on the methods of disaggregation at different levels. This paper reports on a study of hierarchical methods at the family disaggregation level and incorporates a simple modification to improve upon a heuristic proposed by Winters. Results indicate that even a very simple hierarchical planning approach can give a significant reduction in backorders in a production shop having severe capacity restriction.