Freezing the master production schedule under single resource constraint and demand uncertainty

This paper investigates the impact of freezing the master production schedule (NIPS) in multi-item single-level systems with a single resource constraint under demand uncertainty. It also examines the impact of environmental factors on the selection of MPS freezing parameters. A computer model is built to simulate master production scheduling activities in a multi-item system under a rolling time horizon. The result of the study shows that the parameters for freezing the MPS have a significant impact on total cost, schedule instability and the service level of the system. Furthermore, the selection of freezing parameters is also significantly influenced by some environmental factors such as capacity tightness and cost structure. While some findings concerning the performance of MPS freezing parameters without capacity constraints can be generalised to the case of limited capacity, other conclusions under capacity constraints are different from those without capacity constraints. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.