A review of multi-factor capacity expansion models for manufacturing plants: Searching for a holistic decision aid

Abstract

Investment in capacity expansion remains one of the most critical decisions for a manufacturing organisation with global production facilities. Multiple factors need to be considered making the decision process very complicated. The purpose of this paper is to establish the state-of-the-art in multi-factor models for capacity expansion in manufacturing plants and networks. A three phase research programme is presented consisting of an extensive literature review and a structured assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the current research. The study found that there is a substantial amount of work on development of mathematical multi-factor models for capacity expansion. Despite that, no single work captures all the different facets of the problem.

Single-site strategic capacity planning considering renewal, maintenance, inventory, taxes and cash flow management

“…Luss (1982) was the first literature review on capacity expansion. Van Mieghem (2003), Wu et al (2005), Julka et al (2007) and also provided literature reviews on this topic. The most recent review is Martínez-Costa et al (2014), which describes the major decisions and conditioning factors involved in strategic capacity planning, and outlines the mathematical programming models proposed in the literature to deal with the above problems.…”

An Innovative Framework Supporting SME Networks for Complex Product Manufacturing

“…There should be easy mechanisms for finding business partners. This phase specifies the life-cycle of a Business Community and the needed activities and initiatives that need to be implemented to assure its desired performance [4], [6], [7]. Market research activities and sharing of business opportunities is promoted.…”

A modeling approach for evaluating capacity flexibilities in uncertain markets

“…Please see Mula et al (2006) and Julka et al (2007) for additional reviews of the relevant literature on capacity planning under uncertainties. The most frequently used capacity planning models apply an analytical modeling approach (Mula et al 2006), and most researchers try to solve the problem by means of stochastic programming and optimization (e.g., see Wets 1989;Birge and Louveaux 1997;Karabuk and Wu 1999).…”