IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v131y2011i2p689-700.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The theory and practice of workload control: A research agenda and implementation strategy

Author

Listed:
  • Stevenson, Mark
  • Huang, Yuan
  • Hendry, Linda C.
  • Soepenberg, Erik

Abstract

The Workload Control (WLC) concept is one of few Production Planning and Control (PPC) solutions appropriate for Make-To-Order (MTO) companies yet its successful implementation is an enduring challenge. Most implementations reported are in large organisations yet it has been argued that WLC is particularly suitable for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited financial resources. Moreover, previous studies do not adequately describe the process through which implementation success was achieved. In this paper, data collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with key personnel from 41 companies is presented in order to build up a body of evidence on the characteristics of MTO SMEs that affect WLC implementation. The data paints a complex picture of MTO production and suggests that research is likely to be required to move theory closer to practice and organisational change to move practice closer to theory. The former is recommended where processes perform well or appear difficult to change; the latter is recommended where fundamental WLC principles are involved. Two outputs emerge from the study: (1) a research agenda for refining the WLC concept to improve alignment between theory and practice, covering the customer enquiry, order entry, design and engineering and order release stages; and (2) an implementation strategy, including elements of organisational change and covering pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation stages. The characteristics of MTO SMEs identified should be used in future research to develop more realistic simulations for testing conceptual refinements while field research should apply and extend the implementation strategy presented in order to develop a more detailed roadmap for successful WLC implementation in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Stevenson, Mark & Huang, Yuan & Hendry, Linda C. & Soepenberg, Erik, 2011. "The theory and practice of workload control: A research agenda and implementation strategy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 689-700, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:131:y:2011:i:2:p:689-700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925-5273(11)00076-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kingsman, Brian & Hendry, Linda & Mercer, Alan & de Souza, Antonio, 1996. "Responding to customer enquiries in make-to-order companies Problems and solutions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 219-231, December.
    2. Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 1996. "Workload control concepts in job shops A critical assessment," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 535-548, December.
    3. Mandal, Purnendu & Gunasekaran, A., 2003. "Issues in implementing ERP: A case study," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 274-283, April.
    4. Land, Martin J. & Gaalman, Gerard J. C., 1998. "The performance of workload control concepts in job shops: Improving the release method," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 347-364, September.
    5. Bobrowski, PM & PARK, PS, 1989. "Work release strategies in a dual resource constrained job shop," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 177-188.
    6. Corti, Donatella & Pozzetti, Alessandro & Zorzini, Marta, 2006. "A capacity-driven approach to establish reliable due dates in a MTO environment," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 536-554, December.
    7. Kingsman, Brian G., 2000. "Modelling input-output workload control for dynamic capacity planning in production planning systems," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 73-93, October.
    8. Hendry, L. C. & Elings, P. & Pegg, D., 1993. "Production planning for an artists studio -- A case study," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 12-20, January.
    9. Soepenberg, G.D. & Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 2008. "The order progress diagram: A supportive tool for diagnosing delivery reliability performance in make-to-order companies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 495-503, March.
    10. Sabuncuoglu, I. & Karapinar, H. Y., 1999. "Analysis of order review/release problems in production systems," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 259-279, September.
    11. Wallace J. Hopp & Mark L. Spearman, 2004. "To Pull or Not to Pull: What Is the Question?," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(2), pages 133-148, August.
    12. Betrand, J.W.M. & van Ooijen, H.P.G., 2008. "Optimal work order release for make-to-order job shops with customer order lead-time costs, tardiness costs and work-in-process costs," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 233-241, December.
    13. Land, Martin, 2006. "Parameters and sensitivity in workload control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 625-638, December.
    14. Bertrand, J. W. M. & Muntslag, D. R., 1993. "Production control in engineer-to-order firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 3-22, July.
    15. Tatsiopoulos, I. P. & Kingsman, B. G., 1983. "Lead time management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 351-358, December.
    16. Oosterman, Bas & Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 2000. "The influence of shop characteristics on workload control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 107-119, October.
    17. Hendry, L. & Land, M. & Stevenson, M. & Gaalman, G., 2008. "Investigating implementation issues for workload control (WLC): A comparative case study analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 452-469, March.
    18. Perona, Marco & Portioli, Alberto, 1998. "The impact of parameters setting in load oriented manufacturing control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 133-142, July.
    19. Henrich, Peter & Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 2004. "Exploring applicability of the workload control concept," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 187-198, July.
    20. Henrich, Peter & Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 2006. "Grouping machines for effective workload control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 125-142, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thürer, Matthias & Stevenson, Mark & Qu, Ting & Godinho Filho, Moacir, 2014. "The design of simple subcontracting rules for make-to-order shops: An assessment by simulation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 239(3), pages 854-864.
    2. Yarong Chen & Hongming Zhou & Peiyu Huang & FuhDer Chou & Shenquan Huang, 2022. "A refined order release method for achieving robustness of non-repetitive dynamic manufacturing system performance," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 311(1), pages 65-79, April.
    3. Davide Mezzogori & Giovanni Romagnoli & Francesco Zammori, 2021. "Defining accurate delivery dates in make to order job-shops managed by workload control," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 956-991, December.
    4. Thürer, Matthias & Land, Martin J. & Stevenson, Mark, 2014. "Card-based workload control for job shops: Improving COBACABANA," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(PA), pages 180-188.
    5. Thürer, Matthias & Land, Martin J. & Stevenson, Mark & Fredendall, Lawrence D., 2016. "Card-based delivery date promising in high-variety manufacturing with order release control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 19-30.
    6. Thürer, Matthias & Stevenson, Mark, 2018. "Bottleneck-oriented order release with shifting bottlenecks: An assessment by simulation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 275-282.
    7. von Schéele, Fabian & Haftor, Darek M., 2018. "Temporal workload in economic organizations: A hidden non-linear condition of economic efficiency," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 415-420.
    8. Jianjun Liu & Martin J. Land & Jos A. C. Bokhorst & Qingxin Chen, 2023. "Improving coordination in assembly job shops: redesigning order release and dispatching," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 669-697, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hendry, L. & Land, M. & Stevenson, M. & Gaalman, G., 2008. "Investigating implementation issues for workload control (WLC): A comparative case study analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 452-469, March.
    2. Henrich, Peter & Land, Martin & Gaalman, Gerard, 2006. "Grouping machines for effective workload control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 125-142, November.
    3. Stevenson, Mark & Hendry, Linda C., 2006. "Aggregate load-oriented workload control: A review and a re-classification of a key approach," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 676-693, December.
    4. Fernandes, Nuno O. & Thürer, Matthias & Silva, Cristóvão & Carmo-Silva, Sílvio, 2017. "Improving workload control order release: Incorporating a starvation avoidance trigger into continuous release," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 181-189.
    5. Kaustav Kundu & Martin J. Land & Alberto Portioli-Staudacher & Jos A. C. Bokhorst, 2021. "Order review and release in make-to-order flow shops: analysis and design of new methods," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 750-782, September.
    6. Land, Martin J., 2009. "Cobacabana (control of balance by card-based navigation): A card-based system for job shop control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 97-103, January.
    7. Matthias Thürer & Mark Stevenson, 2016. "Workload control in job shops with re-entrant flows: an assessment by simulation," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(17), pages 5136-5150, September.
    8. Land, Martin, 2006. "Parameters and sensitivity in workload control," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 625-638, December.
    9. Sagawa, Juliana Keiko & Oliveira, Allan Freitas & Mušič, Gašper & Land, Martin J. & Maluf, Arthur Sarro, 2023. "Smart workload input-output control of production systems: A proof of concept," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(1), pages 286-305.
    10. Thürer, Matthias & Stevenson, Mark & Land, Martin J., 2016. "On the integration of input and output control: Workload Control order release," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 43-53.
    11. Thürer, Matthias & Stevenson, Mark, 2021. "Improving superfluous load avoidance release (SLAR): A new load-based SLAR mechanism," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    12. Kasper, T.A. Arno & Land, Martin J. & Teunter, Ruud H., 2023. "Non-hierarchical work-in-progress control in manufacturing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    13. Federica Costa & Alberto Portioli-Staudacher, 2021. "Labor flexibility integration in workload control in Industry 4.0 era," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 420-433, December.
    14. Jianjun Liu & Martin J. Land & Jos A. C. Bokhorst & Qingxin Chen, 2023. "Improving coordination in assembly job shops: redesigning order release and dispatching," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 669-697, September.
    15. Onay, Anita & Stampfer, Christina & Missbauer, Hubert, 2023. "A behavioral perspective on workload control concepts: The influence of order release on operators’ reaction behavior," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    16. Kasper, T.A. Arno & Land, Martin J. & Teunter, Ruud H., 2023. "Towards System State Dispatching in High‐Variety Manufacturing," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    17. Matthias Thürer & Nuno O. Fernandes & Mark Stevenson, 2020. "Material Flow Control in High‐Variety Make‐to‐Order Shops: Combining COBACABANA and POLCA," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(9), pages 2138-2152, September.
    18. Matthias Thürer & Mark Stevenson, 2021. "Material handling and order release control in high-variety make-to-order shops: an assessment by simulation," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 494-506, December.
    19. Davide Mezzogori & Giovanni Romagnoli & Francesco Zammori, 2021. "Defining accurate delivery dates in make to order job-shops managed by workload control," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 956-991, December.
    20. Matthias Thürer & Mark Stevenson & Ting Qu, 2016. "Job sequencing and selection within workload control order release: an assessment by simulation," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 1061-1075, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:131:y:2011:i:2:p:689-700. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.