The majority of Production Planning and Control (PPC) literature is focused on the study and development of solutions for large companies, especially in repetitive environments. Therefore, there are few specific PPC solutions available in the literature for small and medium sized companies (SMC) operating in a Make -to-Order (MTO) environment. This paper presents the Workload Control (WLC), which is a useful PPC approach designed for small sized Make-to-Order companies. According to the literature, such approach has the potential to reduce lead time, work in process, and to provide a better tardiness performance in MTO companies. Firstly, the paper presents the WLC approach reviewing and discussing the main WLC aspects addressed in the literature. The objective is to introduce the concept and present the recent developments to fellow researchers and practitioners. The performance of WLC is then assessed by simulation. The results underline the potential of WLC to bring major improvements in terms of lead time and tardiness performance supporting small and medium sized MTO companies. Therefore, this study aims at contributing to PPC academic and practical areas by introducing WLC approach concepts to Brazilian researchers and managers showing its benefits and potential to help national companies in their efforts towards lead time reduction and best tardiness performance according to modern manufacturing paradigms such as Lean Manufacturing and Quick Response Manufacturing.
Workload control; Production planning and control; Lead time reduction; Small and medium companies; Make-to-order
