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Communication in its broadest connotation is a challenging subject, and one of vital importance to every industrial enterprise. The increasing trend toward specialization which characterizes industry today has made it mandatory that any industry which hopes to survive must keep a sensitive finger on the consumer’s pulse. The author has undertaken a detailed study designed to highlight the relationship between the manufacturers of wood utilization machinery and their consumer (which is the Southern Pine lumber industry) from the standpoint of both organizational structure and procedure. Against the background of the Forrester and Laitala concepts of information-feedback and the consumer-to-consumer cycle, respectively, this thesis develops the principle of organizational structure aa a means of insuring positive communication. Recognizing that no two industrial enterprises are ever quite alike, this thesis seeks to identify the techniques whereby the producer can develop a positive reaction to the environment and attitude of his consumer. The pros and cons of alternative methods are presented, together with a recommendation as to an appropriate course of action under a given circumstance. / Master of Science

<p>This thesis studies the development and implementation of a material requirements planning system designed to satisfy the production and inventory needs of a particular plant. It traces the development of the various management techniques from the intuitive ordering of parts, through the various stock replenishment systems, to the design of an MRP system. Special emphasis is placed on the review of forecasting, safety stock, and ordering policies because these techniques will be included in, or used in association with, the MRP system.</p> / Master of Science

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / This research study investigated the strategic business processes involved in make-or-buy decisions at Dalein Feeds from a theoretical and practical perspective. The main aim of study was to develop a make-or-buy decision making framework, and then comment on and provide recommendations for Dalein Feeds with regards to the make-or-buy options of certain products which were under review. The research study ends with a conclusion and recommendations as to how this framework should be used by the decision makers of the company.

published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This research is concerned with scheduling production over a finite planning horizon in a capacitated manufacturing facility. It is assumed that a second source of supply is available by means of subcontracting and that the demand varies over time. The problem is to establish the production level in the facility and/or the ordering quantity from the subcontractor for each period in the planning horizon. Firstly, the cost functions are analyzed and two types of realistic production cost models are identified. Then mathematical models are developed for two different problems. One is a single criterion problem aimed at minimizing the total production and inventory costs. The other is a bicriterion problem which seeks the efficient frontier with respect to the total cost and the number of subcontractings, both to be minimized, over the planning horizon. For each of the above, two methods, namely, a general dynamic programming approach and an improved dynamic programming approach (Shortest path method) are presented. Several results are obtained for reducing the computations in solving these problems. Based on these results, algorithms are developed for both problems. The computational complexity of these algorithms are also analyzed. Two heuristic rules are then suggested for obtaining near-optimal solutions to the first problem with lesser computation. Both rules have been tested extensively and the results indicate advantages of using them. One of these rules is useful for solving the uncapacitated problem faster without losing optimality. The above results are then extended to other cases where some of the assumptions in the original problem are relaxed. Finally, we studied the multi-item lot-sizing problem with the subcontracting option and proposed a heuristic for solving the problem by the Lagrangean relaxation approach. We demonstrated that with an additional capacity constraint in the dual problem the feasible solution and the lower bound obtained during each iteration converge much faster than without it. After testing some randomly generated problems we found that most of the solutions obtained from the heuristic are very close to the best lower bound obtained from the dual problem within a limited number of iterations.

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by Ng So-ying Gloria. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982