CMS Production Scheduling & Capacity Planning 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary purpose of a Time-Phased Requirements Plan in capacity management?
- To project capacity needs by period based on the MPS and routings (Correct answer)
- To allocate labor across departments on a daily basis
- To calculate the cost of overtime versus subcontracting
- To determine the optimal batch size for each work center
Correct answer: To project capacity needs by period based on the MPS and routings
A time-phased requirements plan uses the MPS and routing data to project work center load week by week into the future.
Question 2: When a manufacturer uses a 'chase strategy' for aggregate production planning, what variable is primarily adjusted?
- Workforce size (Correct answer)
- Inventory levels
- Overtime hours
- Subcontractor volume
Correct answer: Workforce size
The chase strategy matches production output directly to demand each period by hiring and laying off workers as needed.
Question 3: Which MRP input directly drives the Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) calculation?
- Planned order releases (Correct answer)
- Gross requirements
- Net requirements
- On-hand inventory records
Correct answer: Planned order releases
CRP explodes planned order releases through routing files to calculate the specific labor and machine hours required at each work center.
Question 4: A drum-buffer-rope (DBR) scheduling system places the 'rope' to synchronize which part of the production system?
- Material release at the front of the plant to the drum's pace (Correct answer)
- Finished goods shipping to customer demand
- Work-in-process between all work centers
- Labor scheduling to bottleneck output
Correct answer: Material release at the front of the plant to the drum's pace
The rope ties the release of raw material at the plant entrance to the drum (bottleneck) rate, preventing WIP buildup upstream.
Question 5: What scheduling performance metric measures the proportion of jobs completed by their due dates?
- Schedule adherence (on-time delivery rate) (Correct answer)
- Mean flow time
- Makespan
- Utilization rate
Correct answer: Schedule adherence (on-time delivery rate)
Schedule adherence or on-time delivery rate tracks the percentage of jobs or orders completed on or before their promised due dates.
Question 6: In level scheduling (heijunka), what is smoothed across the production period?
- The mix and volume of production output (Correct answer)
- Workforce headcount
- Raw material deliveries
- Machine downtime windows
Correct answer: The mix and volume of production output
Heijunka levels both the volume and product mix over the production horizon to reduce variation and support just-in-time flow.
Question 7: Which analytical tool is used to identify the maximum throughput rate of a production system with sequential operations?
- Bottleneck analysis (Correct answer)
- Value stream mapping
- FMEA
- Gantt chart
Correct answer: Bottleneck analysis
Bottleneck analysis identifies the slowest operation in a sequence, which caps the entire system's maximum output rate.
CMS Production Scheduling & Capacity Planning 3
What is the primary purpose of a Time-Phased Requirements Plan in capacity management?