To address the problem faced by Nova Plumbing Solutions, the methodology of sales and operation planning, was followed.
The methodology of sales and operation planning, also known as aggregate production planning in the Industrial Engineering domain, was followed. The reason for this choice was that the problem was stemming not from operational matters but from the lack of high-level monitoring. According to Chopra and Meindl, such a planning approach deals with the capacity decisions and presents volumes as well as the mixture for future production
The steps that were taken in this project to come up with such a plan consisted mostly of formulating and solving a linear programming model which was followed by the analysis of outputs. Of course, the LP model required estimation of some parameters. In terms of estimation effort, the tasks were separated as:
Aggregate production plans generally cover 3 to 18 months into the future. For the scope of this project, a planning horizon of 12 months was regarded as a reasonable choice. Thorough analyses were conducted for this time period. For the sake of sustainability and flexibility, a capacity planning tool was decided to be delivered to the company. Steps that were taken through the course of the project is summarized in the Figure.
