Impact of production run length on supply chain performance

This paper documents an experiment designed to show the value of simulation in understanding the relationship between production run lengths and overall supply chain performance. Current production practices and supply chain policies of an existing company provided the starting point for the experiment. The experiment consisted of two deployment scenarios and a range of run length multipliers that vary the company's actual run length rules. Minimum cost run lengths were determined for twelve combinations of cost assumptions for changeovers and inventories.