Adaptive Techniques for Product Families
Figure 6.2.2.2 showed an example of the variant master schedule. The example revealed that, in practice, this technique would not be applied for that case, because the number of variants turns out to be too high. However, the present exercise is aimed to aid better understanding of the technique, and it is thus useful for all cases where the number of variants is significantly smaller than the total demand quantity for the product family.
a. Suppose that the demand of the product family P for January was 200 instead of 100 . Again, suppose an equal share - with a deviation of $20 \%$ - of the variants of the demand at the product family P level. What would have been the total number of variants $V_1+V_2+\ldots+V_{100}$ in the master production schedule for January?
b. For the month of March, where the demand of the product family was 150 , can you explain why two units have to be considered in the MPS for each variant?
c. For April, where the demand of the product family was 120, can you explain why only one unit has been considered in the MPS for each variant?