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Introduction
With fast-tracked technology and the competitive need to get the right product to the
market as fast as possible, businesses have a real challenge in managing their product
development efforts. Success of the business is based on sound decision making in how
to allocate research funds, initiation of new programs or projects, killing or accelerating
projects, and launching the products with the highest probability of success.
This process is one of managing the portfolio of new products or, as used in this report,
simply Aggregate Planning and Scheduling. Nahmias, Steven, Schroeder, R.G, and
Stevenson, William J. in their book, Production and Operation Analysis, Operations
management, provides the following definition of Aggregate Planning and Scheduling:
Aggregate plans help match supply and demand while minimizing costs by applying
upper level forecasts to lower level, production-floor scheduling. Plans generally either
"chase" demand, adjusting its work force accordingly or are "level' plans, meaning that
labor is relatively constant with fluctuations in demand being met by inventories and
backorders.
The portfolio decision process encompasses or overlaps a number of decision-making
processes within the business, including periodic reviews of the total portfolio of all
projects (looking at the entire set of projects, and comparing all projects against each
other); overviewing this is generally most effective when applied to periods two to 18
months in advance. It is a useful tool in creation and evaluation of alternatives such as
the adjustment of the labor force through hire/fire/layoff/overtime, the use of
subcontractors, anticipatory inventory, and, even the development of complementary
products and pricing strategies.
Why aggregate planning?
Details are hard to gather for longer horizons
o Demand for Christmas turkeys at Tom Thumbs vs Thanksgiving turkeys
If there is variability why bother making detailed plans, inputs will change
anyway
o Instead make plans that carry a lot of flexibility
o Flexibility and aggregation go hand in hand
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CPM
Network analysis technique used in complex project plans with a large number of
activities. CPM diagrams (1) all activities, (2) time required for their completion, (3) and
how each activity is related to the previous and next activity. A sequence of activities is
called a 'path,' and the longest-path in the diagram is the critical path. It is 'critical'
because all activities on it must be completed in the designated time, otherwise the whole
project will be delayed. Also called critical path analysis or critical path methodology.
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