Abstract
In this research, a Capacity Planning System (CPS) is developed using Microsoft Visual Basic for Application (VBA) to generate a feasible production schedules and avoid overcapacity. This capacity planning system can assign orders to production lines by considering stocks in inventory and number of production loss due to initial machine setup quality checking, and process characteristics. Moreover, it can also plan order release time, and balance machine loading. This can be accomplished by implementing five major modules in the capacity planning system: Order Treatment Module (OTM), Order Priority Module (OPM), Lot Release Module (LRM), Workload Accumulation Module (WAM), and Workload Balance Module (WBM). CPS results indicated that CPS could effectively reduce overcapacity. Additionally, experimental design is used to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed CPS with various factors and levels. There are five factors considered (number of orders, order size, order size variance, order priority and balance policy) and the responses of this experimental analysis are machine workload balance, order due date deviation and lateness. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to evaluate the factors in accordance to the responses. Moreover, the optimal settings for the control factors under 8 combinations of different environment factors are also evaluated. This can assist decision makers to use the optimal settings of control factors to generate the best favorable response under different environment factors.