A Dynamic Switching Policy with Combined Make-to-Stock/Make-to-Order Thresholds for Hybrid Production Systems

Dynamic MTS/MTO hybrid production systems [1]; in which some of machines, called hybrid machines which can be switched between make-to-stock (MTS) and make-to-order (MTO) production, are superior for enhancing utilization of machines, but they increase MTS inventory and MTO waiting customers. In this paper, in order to improve productivity, we propose a switching policy with combined thresholds in which both of MTS inventory level and MTO waiting customer level are utilized for switching decision. This performance is analyzed based on Markov analysis with the state transition diagram. The results of numerical experiments under several scenarios show the effectiveness of the proposed policy.