The effect of operational policies on production systems robustness: an aerospace case study

This study aims to evaluate the robustness of a low volume mixed model production line under different operating conditions. A real production line that builds six different aircraft heat exchangers is modelled, simulated and analysed under different operating conditions. A number of experiments are conducted in order to assess the effect of dispatching rules and disturbances related to reworks, and processing time variance on tardiness robustness. A penalty function to quantitatively assess tardiness is defined based on lead time at capacity and it is used to measure the robustness of the system. The results of the assessment are then discussed in order to give some practical guidance to production planners with controlling the line in the face of uncertainty or disturbances similar to those evaluated in the study.