A Simulation Study of Workload Accounting Methods for WLC

Workload control (WLC) is a production planning and control concept designed for complex manufacturing systems. Several Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been developed based on WLC concept. These require a number of parameters to be specified. However, it is recognised by academics and practitioners that parameter specification for these DSS is a difficult task. For a better understanding of manufacturing systems performance behaviour under the influence of two important order release parameters, namely the release frequency and the planning period, a simulation study was carried out. This was done for a system operation under two well known workload accounting methods for WLC: the load conversion method and the corrected aggregated load method. The results are instrumental to the understanding of the manufacturing system performance and the DSS parameterisation in particular manufacturing situations.