An extended enterprise planning methodology for the discrete manufacturing industry

Extended factories consisting of geographically dispersed independent production facilities are already a reality in the global economy. Production facilities concentrate on core technologies and create partner networks for the manufacturing of their products, a trend initially visible in semiconductor manufacturing but quickly spreading to other industries. A methodology, more flexible and efficient than the traditional time-bucket-based techniques and dynamic dispatching heuristics, to plan the Extended Semiconductor Enterprise and schedule work at the different production entities is presented in this paper. The generic approach also opens opportunities for applications in other discrete manufacturing industries. The methodology uses stepwise search procedures to improve plans and make-or-buy decision processes to solve resource constraints. Focus of the paper is principally on resource scheduling and less on logistics and distribution topics. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.