Automotive Scheduling Analysis

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Framework for planning and scheduling in the automotive industry
In this section of research paper we attempted to explain the planning and scheduling functions related to order fulfilment in mid & short term (ranging up to 3 to 24 months) period in automotive industries operating in Japan and Germany.
Since German and Japanese automotive industries are largely driven by customer demand the output of forecasting method largely depends upon accuracy of data obtained from retailers, current & past trends, competitor’s action, marketing capabilities etc. Demand Forecasting is usually done by sales team using various qualitative and quantitative methods on continuous basis.
Sales Allocation Planning aims to serves as a bridge which maintains …show more content…

It has a time horizon of 4 days before the end of production scheduling. Normally, the process starts with annual demand forecasting and sales forecasting, which is again linked with annual Master Production Planning. However, the three-month production plan is more robust. This is created based on 3 months demand forecasting and is reviewed monthly. Of this production plan, only for next month schedule, a more detailed daily plan is created. However, the final daily production schedule which is connected with the actual customer order issued by a dealer was decided four days before the end of production. This is called “Sequence production …show more content…

The total order-to-delivery period id two weeks; and only four hours of it is being spent in physical assembly process.
Discussion & Conclusion
Following are major insights and understandings that were found,
• A great variation was revealed in various factors such as manufacturing conditions, product variety and managerial practices in order fulfilment at Japanese and German auto makers
• In German automakers, it is common to find an inventory buffer stock between the final assembly and upstream manufacturing processes (i.e. painting and body welding) but not in Japanese automakers
• It is also found that, German makers have implemented a sequence-oriented production system which resulted in, the demand-oriented order fulfilment system that requires a much longer time for planning and scheduling than the Japanese maker
• The historically developed keiretsu dealer system allows the Japanese makers to employ and manage their dealer network much more

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