Student guide Faculty of Engineering A.Y. 2007/08

Industrial Production Management
Aim of the course
The course will complete the student's knowledge of the most up-to-date models and methods for industrial production management, examining the relationships between the structure of a production management system and the various phases of product design and development, control of industrial production and automation decisions, and ending with a more in-depth study of the potentialities offered by production management information systems.
In particular, the topic areas examined will be:
- Aspects relating to production strategy, where the growing emphasis placed on the "efficacy" performance measure (especially along the time axis: time to market, time to product, etc.), as opposed to the "efficiency" performance measure, has prompted the development of many different paradigms and "collections of methods" (TQM, JIT, lean production, One Kind Production, Quick response, to name only the most well-known) that a management engineering must be familiar with.
- Advanced medium-term production planning methods (approaches based on aggregation and disaggregation of products into families and groups to formulate the principal production plan, modelling of multi-site systems) and their integration with methods for the definition of product configurations
- Production planning methods, in which the traditional hierarchical top-down "push" approach (MRP) is currently being superseding by new models and methods based on a "bottom-up" approach, with a resultant redefinition of the objective functions and variables of the problem (transition from a planning approach that seeks to synchronise activities "as late as possible" whilst overlooking some problem constraints, to an approach whose fundamental objective is absolute compliance with the context constraints); the importance of these issues is borne out by the enormous number of publications and conference presentations, and the proliferation of material on the Internet, on the subject of "Constraint Based Programming"
- Methods for short-term production scheduling, where the changing focus of objectives (from optimising internal resources to optimising service to the client, or assuring the feasibility of a production plan) has led to a proliferation of models based on traditional approaches (heuristic and optimising) as well as of entirely novel approaches, such as autonomous intelligent agents, which have opened up many new frontiers in research and modelling.
Syllabus
1. Methods of analysis of Production Management systems
Methodological introduction to times and phases of the production scheduling, planning and control cycle, and to the analysis - diagnosis - treatment approach; mapping of information flows in technical areas.
2. Introduction to production information systems
Basic concepts of a production information system; relationships between Advanced Planning Systems (APS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems; evolutionary trends and scenarios for production information systems.
Product coding; informatics architecture of the principal production archives; management of physical and fiscal inventory.
3. Redesign of the Planning and Scheduling cycle
General overview of the processes and modules of an information system, and goals of the redesign action.
Sales forecasts: methods for producing forecasts, the Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) form, the product and cycle configurator.
Design: notes on design and its impact on production management, the Product Data Management module (PDM);
Production planning: concept of "critical bill of materials (BOM)", multi-site aggregate scheduling, make or buy modelling.
Order handling: concepts of Available to Promise (ATP) and Capable to Promise (CTP).
MRP and inventory control. strategic inventory, safety stock in MRP systems, further study of Just In Time methods, determining the number of kanbans.
Scheduling: advanced production management methods, autonomous agents, innovative methods
4. APS project management.
Integration of Supply Chain Planning (SCP) systems with ERP systems. Organisational repercussions in the Production Management area
Examinations
The evaluation will consist of an intermediate written test and a final written exam. Candidates can also choose to sit an additional oral evaluation.
Reading list
TEXTBOOKS:
Brandolese, A., Pozzetti, A., Sianesi A., Gestione della Produzione Industriale, Hoepli, Milano 1991.
Grando, A., Sianesi, A., Casi di Gestione della Produzione Industriale, EGEA, Milano 1994.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Stadler, Kilger, Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning, Springer, 2000