Smartville: Extras (7)

Set-Up Times and Stock Levels

Gearing machines to produce right-hand drive components poses disruption to flow due to switchover times. For this reason, production runs will have to be estimated. MCC and its partners must factor in some level of buffer stock for these components. Since it is possible that MCC will run short on these components, and reconfiguring machines in the middle of a standard left-hand drive run will not be immediately possible, stockouts could result. Unplanned switches between sidedness for single units will be impracticable. To counter this, some degree of batch planning for right hand-drive components will be necessary.