A Simulation Study of Solving Material Substitution Problem

The material substitution problem is a critical decision issue in the assembly industry. In practice, this problem is usually solved with managers’ experiences. However, the management objectives of material substitution are various and sometimes there are conflicts between different departments. Therefore, it needs a comprehensive analysis to assess the effectiveness of adopting substitution material under different management objectives. This research uses simulation model to analyze the effectiveness of material substitution policy which includes external substitution, internal substitution and general use of material. Full factorial experimental design was applied to find the performance of proposed material substitution policy, and order quantity, purchase lead-time, due-date variance, order arrival interval, and delay cost were chosen as independent variables. The average flow time, order delay time, order fulfillment rate, and system cost were chosen as dependent variables. Experimental results showed that material substitution policies are significant on all dependent variables. Especially the external substitution policy performed better than the others in the observed four performance indices. Through external substitution policy can improve order fulfillment rate and reduce average flow time. That is, applying external substitution policy can make a great improvement in customer satisfaction which is the most impact factor in satisfying customers under the mass customization environment.