The operations strategy literature has identified four primary dimensions on which a firm competes with another. These are: price, quality, flexibility, and delivery dependability. Of these, quality is perhaps the most critical dimension in terms of the influence a competitive dimension...

This paper presents methods to determine the optimal transfer batch sizes of various part types between two machines so as to minimize the sum of the total relevant costs. Information required includes the expected production requirements, the operations' processing times, the travel times, the...

The evidence is clear that a lack of attention to structured tool management has resulted in the poor performance of many manufacturing systems. Plant tooling systems affect product design options, machine loading, job batching, capacity scheduling, and real-time part routing decisions. With...