Potentials of using real-time data to increase the update frequency of production planning and control strategies in MTO: a discrete event simulation study

Abstract In recent years, production planning and control strategies have gained increasing importance within manufacturing enterprises to stay competitive by enhancing the ability to meet and quickly adapt to the hyper-dynamic requirements of highly volatile markets. In this context, traditional production planning and control strategies like material requirements planning often result in long lead times and high work in progress due to their weak responsiveness to short-term fluctuations in demand. However, new production planning and control strategies and concepts based on the usage of real-time data, as a fundamental principle of Industry 4.0, may have the potential to compensate for the shortcomings of traditional approaches. By using a discrete event simulation based on the data of an electronics manufacturing company, the potential of using real-time data to increase the update frequency in different production planning and control strategies in make to order production systems is analyzed.