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2012
Conference Paper
Titel
Cost impact assessment of production program changes: A value stream oriented approach
Abstract
High capital production assets require an adequate workload to benefit from economies of scale. This and an ever increasing number of product variants often lead to enlarged batch sizes resulting in heightened work in process due to safety stocks and additional changeover. In times of economic volatility, changing production programs cause fluctuations in capacity demand along the value stream. Fixed costs have to be distributed over an ever changing amount of products - batch sizes and production costs are permanently altered. To assure the success of investment decisions, various assessment methods for new machines and their capacity such as the calculation of Net Present Value or Internal Rate of Return exist. These methods imply a predicted production program and associated costs. In contrast, follow-up costs along the value stream are often untended in the calculation of future scenarios and planned measures. Possible impacts of a change of the production program (volume and variants) are mostly unknown. The aim of the developed calculation model is the estimation of the flexibility of costs (elasticity) depending on these various cost drivers (units, variants and batch sizes). It supports the forecast of possible impacts regarding uncertain future developments and discloses that section of the value stream responsible for cost related effects and where necessary measures for improvement should be located.
Language
English