Evaluating Lot‐sizing Performance in Multi‐level MRP Systems: A Comparative Analysis of Multiple Performance Measures

Past research in examining the performance of alternative lot‐sizing rules has focused on the total cost of inventory carrying cost and set‐up cost. Although this cost‐related performance measure is significant for evaluating the overall efficiency of production systems, there are other variations such as frequent rescheduling, generally referred to as system nervousness, occurring that would affect the production scheduling and subsequently the system performance. Expands the performance criteria to re‐evaluate the effectiveness of using several commonly tested lot‐sizing rules in a multi‐level MRP system under stochastic operating environments by means of a simulation study. Results indicate that the Silver‐Meal algorithm seem to perform very well under most operating environments tested. Also, the operating environments play a significant role in the relative performance of lot‐sizing rules tested.